Cucumber in pots

8 Tips for Successfully Growing Cucumbers In Pots

Cucumbers can be a little tricky to grow. But with our 8 tips for growing cucumbers in pots, you are sure to get a bountiful harvest even if you don’t have a garden.

While many veggies in the cucurbit family are easy to grow (I’m looking at you zucchini), cucumbers tend to be a little more finicky.

Given that, it may seem like a bad idea to try to grow these temperamental plants in containers. But the truth is that growing cucumbers in pots can actually be easier than putting them in the garden.

After all, in pots, these sensitive cucurbits are less exposed to pathogens and their environment can be more easily monitored for optimal growth. Even more important? You can direct seed even in short-season climates to avoid upsetting fragile seedlings.

Skeptical but willing to give it a try for a chance to grow your own delicious cucumbers and crunchy pickles?

In this article, we’ll give you our recommendations for the best types of cucs to grow in pots as well as our eight tips for successfully growing them in containers. Then we’ll introduce you to some tasty recipes to help you use up your bountiful crop.

Ready to get started?

The Best Type of Cucumbers to Grow in Pots

Like most cucurbits, cucumbers come in two main types: bush and vining. Within each category, there are specific varieties that tend to do well when planted in pots.

Bush Cucumbers

As you can imagine, bushy cucumbers are best suited for life in a container. These compact plants only grow up to about three feet long. This makes containing them in pots much easier, especially if you have limited floor or vertical space around your container garden.

When left to their own devices, these types will cascade down the side of the pots but won’t venture much farther. They can also be trained to grow vertically using a tomato cage or similar setup.

Some of our favorite bush cucumber varieties for growing in pots are:

Bush Slicer – This robust dwarf cuc produces long, straight fruits on short vines. These hardy plants are resistant to disease and grow well in cool and hot weather.
Pick a Bushel – This compact plant produces short, two-foot-long vines and develops fruit early–perfect for short-season climates. They do well in medium-sized pots.
Salad Bush – This undersized plant produces full-sized cucumbers. It was designed to grow in tighter spaces and is perfect for smaller containers.
Spacemaster – As the name entails, this cucumber was selectively bred to grow well in restricted environments. It puts out short vines with medium-sized fruits and matures quickly so you can start enjoying your harvest sooner.

Vining Cucumbers

Vining cucumbers take a little more work to grow in containers, but it can be done. And, because these types tend to produce a lot more fruit, the rewards can be well worth it.

If you do choose a vining cucumber, you have two choices in how to deal with those long vines. You can allow them to cascade down the pots and over the ground around your container garden, or you can tame them to trellises.

Many of these types of cucumbers can grow up to eight feet long, so be sure you have the horizontal or vertical space to spare before you pick up any of these seed varieties.

Here are some of our favorite vining cucumber varieties for growing in pots:

Diva – This special vining variety does not require pollination by insects to produce fruit, which makes it a great choice for container gardens on apartment balconies and other areas that don’t get a lot of bees.
Lemon – These eight-foot-long vines produce fun, round, yellowish fruits that are perfect for snacking. While not compact, they tolerate containers very well.
Suyo Long – This Asian variety produces long vines with long fruit–up to fifteen inches! These perfect slicers are slightly sweet and always a hit.

8 Tips for Growing Cucumbers In Pots

Once you have your preferred variety picked out, it’s time to start planning your container garden. Here are eight tips to help you find success.

1. Choose a sunny location

Cucumbers are big on sun, so look for areas that get at least 8 hours of direct light each day.

Most varieties are heat tolerant, so a bright, sunny, south-facing wall generally works well. But also consider how easy it will be to water and harvest in that location.

Also, consider your trellis options for each possible location. Vining cucs require a large trellis–up to 8 feet high–or a lot of room to spread out along the ground. Bushy cucumbers, on the other hand, will only need a few feet to spread their leaves.

2. Pick the right pot

Plastic, ceramic, and even cloth pots all make excellent choices for growing cucumbers. Before deciding on which type of pot you’ll use, consider if you plan on moving the pots once they are full or if you expect to have to bring them inside (if you start them earlier in the spring or want to extend the season in the fall).

Ceramic pots are likely to be too heavy to heave around once they are filled with soil. While cloth pots are lighter, it is more difficult to contain the moisture that comes out of them, making them a poor choice for using indoors.

Whatever material you choose, just make sure the pot is at least 16 inches deep and a foot wide and can hold around 6 gallons of soil. This will provide plenty of space for most cucumber varieties. Vining types, however, will benefit from a larger, heavier pot, especially if you plan to train them to grow vertically.

Your pot should also have adequate drainage so excess moisture can run through each time you water.

3. Fill your pot with rich soil

Cucumbers require a lot of nutrients to produce the plethora of fruit they are known for. Because of this, it is vitally important to create a rich starting soil for your plants. When growing cucumbers in pots, this is even more important.

As with all container plants, cucumbers will benefit from a high-quality potting soil. This special soil helps retain moisture and airflow better than traditional garden soil.

For cucumbers, in particular, you’ll also want to mix in plenty of compost and some slow-release fertilizer. This will provide your developing plants with plenty of nutrients to get started on the right track and additional nutrients as they begin to produce fruit.

4. Direct sow your seeds

Cucumbers notoriously do not do well with transplanting. For this reason, it is better to buy seeds and direct sow them into your pots than to buy seedlings.

Once you have your soil prepared and well-watered, you are ready to plant your seeds.

Cucumbers are warm-season plants, which means they require soil over 60 degrees to germinate and are not tolerant to freezing temperatures. In most climates, you’ll want to start seeds about two weeks after the last frost. Alternatively, you can move your pots inside and start seeds earlier, then move them outside once the weather warms.

Refer to your seed packet for specific instructions, but in general, you’ll want to plant your cucumber seeds about 1 inch below the soil surface. Plant three in each pot and thin down to the strongest plant once the seedlings have reached a couple of inches tall.

5. Water consistently and add fertilizer as needed

When your seedlings are small and the weather is still cool, you’ll only need to water every few days to keep the soil moist. After the plants get bigger, and especially once they start producing water-logged fruit, you will need to water more often.

The key is to keep the soil consistently moist to the touch at all times, without allowing the dirt to get soggy. Having good drainage holes in the bottom of your pot, or using a cloth pot that constantly drains, will help with this. Once the top of the soil dries, it is time to water again.

If you do the extra work of adding time-release fertilizer when you prepare your soil, you will only have to do supplemental fertilizing once the plants start producing. Creating a fertilizer tea out of grass clippings is a great, cost-effective way to add nutrients. Otherwise, you can use a diluted liquid fertilizer.

In either case, add the fertilizer every three to four weeks throughout the summer.

6. Tame and maintain

Before your seedlings get too big, you’ll want to prepare your trellis or cage.

For bush varieties that you want to train to grow vertically (to reduce space needs and increase airflow), all you need is a tomato cage. Place the cage over the seedling and gently push the vines back inside the wires every few days until they start crawling up.

For vining varieties, you will need to build a long trellis using posts and mesh, netting, or strings. Pea netting is a great option, as is chicken wire. You can also train vines up individual strings for a quick DIY trellis option. Just avoid mesh with holes larger than a ½ inch since developing fruit can get caught and stuck in larger holes.

7. Harvest all summer long

Some cucumber varieties start producing within two months of sowing. Others will take closer to three months. But all will provide continuous fruit throughout the hotter months and into fall.

Picking the cucumbers often (before they start to swell with seeds) will make for tastier fruit and encourage more production.

When taking fruit off the vine, be sure to use scissors or pruners to carefully clip the stem. Pulling or twisting the fruit will damage the sensitive vines and potentially kill any fruits growing upstream.

Fresh cucs can be stored on the counter for a couple of days or in the fridge for a few weeks.

8. Prepare for colder temperatures

Cucumber production will start to slow as soon as temperatures begin to drop in the fall. But the plant won’t die until the first frost.

If you expect an early cold-snap with warm weather to follow, you can use a sheet to protect your large plants or bring smaller, bush varieties indoors.

If you do expect a hard freeze and still have fruits on the vine, pick anything that is close to ripe so you don’t lose it.

Common Problems You Might Face

In addition to being temperamental about transplanting, cucumbers are also sensitive to many pests and diseases. Here are a few issues that may impact your container-grown cucumbers.

Angular leaf spot – This bacterium causes lesions on cucumber leaves that develop into angular holes. This disease will spread quickly through infected ground gardens but the most likely culprit in container gardens is infected seeds. Getting your seeds from a reputable nursery is the best way to avoid this issue.
Powdery mildew – Like all cucurbits, the wide leaves of the cucumber plant are prone to this fungus, which causes white, powdery residue to cover the foliage. Training vines to grow vertically where there is better airflow and less moisture buildup will help you avoid problems with this disease.
Cucumber beetles – These yellow and black beetles are dangerous to cucs for two reasons. Not only do the adults chomp on the leaves, but the larvae feed on the roots of the plant. The best defense against these pests when growing cucumbers in pots is to keep the plants a good distance away from ground gardens and other foliage.

How to Use Your Harvest

By putting our above tips to use, you are sure to end up with a huge harvest. Here are some of our favorite recipes to use up all those cucumbers.

Easy Vegan Summer Pasta Salad – This cucumber-containing salad is refreshing and filling–perfect for any summer evening.
Easy Homemade Vegan Sushi – Cucumbers add a lot of texture and fresh flavor to some of these homemade sushi rolls.
Chickpea & Cucumber Salad – Protein-packed and tasty–what more do you want out of a salad?
Vegan Cobb Salad with Coconut Bacon Bits – The coconut bacon bits try to steal the show, but homegrown cucumbers will hold their own in this delicious salad.

Still have cucs leftover? Here are ten things to do with cucumbers when you have more than you can eat all at once.

Growing Cucumbers in a Pot

Find more garden information

The Key to Success: Use a Trellis

By Sophia Bielenberg

Although cucumbers have sprawling vines, you can grow them in containers. The key is to choose a compact variety and train those vines up a trellis. The crop climbs high, conserving space and harvesting is a breeze. In addition, growing in containers is a great way to give cucumbers the extra heat they love and control moisture and fertility.

Getting Started

Cucumbers are members of the cucurbitaceae family, which includes summer squash, winter squash, gourds and melons. Like their relatives, cucumbers are heavy feeders?they require warmth, fertile soil and consistent moisture. In sunny, windy or hot urban areas, plants in containers tend to dry out quickly, but there are simple ways to keep your plants from getting thirsty:

Use a large container. Cucumbers need large pots with plenty of soil, so they can develop extensive root systems to support vigorous growth and abundant crops. Choose a container that holds at least 5 gallons (or 20 quarts) of soil for each plant; a larger container is even better. Self-watering planters are especially good for cucumbers because they provide some insurance against drying out. Because of the built-in reservoir, self-watering planters don't dry out as quickly. You'll still need to monitor the moisture level, but you'll have more time between waterings.

Use good quality potting soil. Rich, healthy soil will keep your plants well-fed and retains more moisture than poor quality soil. Do not use ordinary garden soil, which does not drain well when used in a container.

Choose a compact variety. Read the seed packets to identify the best choices for small-space gardening. Several varieties are listed below.

Don't plant too early. Cukes are hot-weather plants. Don't plant outdoors until weather is warm ? usually a week or two after the last spring frost. To get a jump-start, you can start seeds indoors a couple weeks before putting them outside. Use biodegradable pots to prevent transplant shock. Pop up covers can also help extend the season.

Massachusetts gardener Phil Wood grows cucumbers in our original self-watering Tomato Success Kit.

Use a trellis. Take advantage of the vining habit of cucumbers and make use of vertical space . Even a tomato cage can serve as a trellis.

Feed your plants regularly. Amend the soil with granular fertilizer at planting time and follow up with liquid fertilizer during the growing season.

Check the soil moisture every morning. The best way to keep container plants healthy? Develop a good watering sense. Always check the soil moisture with your finger before watering. If dry, water thoroughly. If wet, don't water again until the soil feels dry on top and remains slightly moist below the surface. Note: Plants use the most water during the day, when they're actively photosynthesizing and transpiring (releasing water from their foliage), so water in the morning, unless it's going to rain.

Pests and diseases

Cucumbers are easy to grow and generally don't have many problems?but there are a few things to watch for:

Titan A-Frame Trellis

Powdery mildew looks like white powder sprinkled on the leaf surfaces. It usually happens when conditions are humid and when the plants are stressed; providing good air circulation helps prevent it. If you spot the disease, remove any severely-affected leaves and try either of these two homemade solutions:

Mix 1 teaspoon baking soda with 1 drop of dish soap and 1 quart of water and spray on the plants?it raises the pH of leaf surfaces, making them less attractive to spores.
Mix 1 part cow's milk with 9 parts water and use the mixture as a foliar spray after each rain. The enzymes in the milk are said to discourage the fungus.

Cucumber beetles and squash bugs are the most common pests of cucurbits. The yellow and black cucumber beetles have big appetites and move quickly — but you can spray them with neem oil (or vacuum them) and destroy the orange eggs they lay on the underside of leaves. Squash bugs are large, brown shield-shaped bugs, but they're quite slow-moving, making them easy to pick off and drop into a container of soapy water. Managing these pests also helps prevent diseases, because insects are often carriers of disease. TIP: Cover new seedlings with garden fabric or covers until they start to flower.

If you notice that the first group of flowers that appears simply drops off and doesn't produce fruit, be patient?the first flowers of the season are often males. Female flowers (which have a slight bulge at their base) will start to appear soon after.

Best varieties for containers

In urban areas where there are few bees, choose varieties that are parthenocarpic, which means they set fruit without pollination. Seeds for these varieties are available from High Mowing Organic Seeds.

Picolino F1: A European slicer with sweet flavor, thin skin and crispy texture. Parthenocarpic, with fruit maturing in 50 days.

Saber F1: An American slicer with 8"-9" fruit that matures in 55 days. No pollination required.

H-19 Little Leaf: No pollination required for this pickling variety, which produces 3"-4" fruit in about 58 days.

Poona Kheera. Photo: High Mowing Seeds

Paraiso F1: A slicer with 8"-10" fruit. High-yielding at 59 days.

National Pickling: The 5" fruits, with blunt ends, are perfect for pickling. Starts fruiting at 52 days. Also delicious in salads.

Poona Kheera: Unusual variety from India has 4"5" fruit with golden skin and a juicy, crisp texture. Very productive, starting at 50 days. Climbs easily on a trellis to 5 or 6 feet.

Sophia Bielenberg is an avid gardener and has worked at organic farms and nurseries for over a decade. She currently works as a writer, producing content for the blog and catalog at High Mowing Organic Seeds in northern Vermont. She is passionate about plants and traveling, and especially likes to grow kale, tomatoes, succulents, and potted citrus.

Last updated: 11/21/2022

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Cucumbers on a windowsill are not the easiest vegetables to grow, especially for containers. But if you choose the right variety and provide the plants with regular care, you can harvest a small crop on the first try, even growing cucumbers at home.

Varieties of cucumbers for windowsills and balconies

Cucumbers are divided into types according to the type of cultivation: greenhouse type and open ground. There are also particularly high, “backbone” varieties that do not suit us at all. Limit your selection to greenhouse varieties. Most often, they do not need pollination and produce a good crop of medium-sized cucumbers. nine0003
Bush, Rodnichok, Gherkin, Malyutka, Shorty, Malyshok, NK-mini, Balcony, Hummingbird - under such trade names, weakly branching varieties are “recognized”, which almost do not give lateral lashes.

Cucumber bushes are quite decorative, under all good conditions they give a lot of ovaries. Basically, these are early cucumbers, giving most of the fruits in the first 3 weeks of fruiting. This is an absolute plus, since in room conditions there is most often no need to treat the plant from pests - the diseases do not have time to spread. nine0003
In varieties and hybrids, I am “not in the tooth”, and I can be wrong 10 times, but having studied the material during the preparation of the article, I found that all medium-sized cucumbers (both fruits and bushes) are F1 hybrids, that is, seeds you won't get much from them, but the plants promise to be fertile, resistant to diseases and adverse conditions, and have exactly the size and branching as stated on the seed package.

Sowing cucumbers

The varieties recommended above do well in 2L flower pots or flower containers for several bushes. I saw on one foreign blog that dwarf bushes grow well in a liter pot, but I would not risk it. nine0020
When the temperature during the day reaches 22-24 degrees, and at night does not fall below 15 degrees - you can sow. In a word, you can sow in late autumn if you provide the plant with constant light, but it is better to wait until spring.

Cucumber is very demanding on the soil, it is advisable to prepare the mixture yourself: 1/1 loam, peat, humus, well-rotted manure. If you take purchased soil, then enrich it with humus - 1/1. You can add a little lime to the soil - no more than a pinch per pot. nine0020
Moisten the soil before sowing, at the bottom of the pot a small layer of drainage.

Cucumber seeds can be sown immediately in a large pot, or in peat for seedlings or in eggshells. When the first true leaves appear on the sprouts, you can plant them in a pot right in the shell.

Seeds are recommended to be treated with potassium permanganate, but if the pathogen is under the seed coat, then such disinfection is useless. Soak the seeds in a raspberry solution of potassium permanganate for about 15 minutes. In addition to potassium permanganate, 2-3% hydrogen peroxide is practiced (the seeds can withstand about 5-7 minutes), and phytosporin. nine0020
Seeds should be allowed to dry.

Bury the seed 1 cm deep, sprinkle the soil with water and wait for the first shoots, covering with a bag. Ventilate and monitor soil moisture.

As soon as shoots appear, put the seedlings in the sunniest place, but shade during the hottest hours so that they do not burn.

A highly diluted fertilizer can be applied after 2 weeks.

Cucumbers love moisture. Abundant watering every other day, or every day in the morning or evening on the hottest days. Watering through the pallet is welcome. Cucumbers are very fond of spraying in the mornings and evenings, when direct sunlight does not threaten them. In addition, it is the prevention of spider mites. nine0020

How to tie up cucumbers

To make the stems look good and help them bear the weight of the fruit, they should be tied to a support or net. The main stem should be strengthened, and the side shoots have every right to trail where they want. Barren shoots that block the light of flowers and fruits can be removed.

Harvesting

Harvest fruit without overgrowing and overripe. The sooner you cut, the sooner new ovaries will appear. The first harvest may appear in 7-8 weeks, everything will depend on the variety and weather. nine0003

My hands have not yet reached the cucumbers, but a couple of tomato bushes have already opened their second season, having overwintered well on the windowsill. With might and main bloom from stepchildren.

Pots and moulds. How to grow cucumbers in containers | Kitchen garden | Dacha

06/19/2018 02:04

Elena Popleva

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

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nine0072 AIF at the Dacha No. 11. Let's collect 2 times more cucumbers 06/14/2018
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Why is it needed

Once upon a time, cucumbers in pots or in boxes were grown mainly by people who did not have their own acres. But now many summer residents also resort to this method, because in this way it is possible:

to prolong the cucumber season;

overcome the shortcomings of "weekend gardening": plant cucumbers in the apartment and care for them 5 days a week, not just on weekends; nine0020
to save space in the greenhouse or in the garden - pots can be placed on the platform or blind area.

Harvest in 2 stages

In recent years, the division of the summer cottage "cucumber project" into two directions has become fashionable. For the first fruiting, seedlings of cucumbers are planted early in the greenhouse, where, if necessary, they are protected from cold and frost. Simultaneously with planting, several seedling pots are placed between the plants and seeds of "container" varieties are sown in them. By the time the first fruits of greenhouse cucumbers ripen, the seedlings are removed from the greenhouse, transferred to large pots and placed outdoors. Their fruits will begin to arrive just in time for the moment when the inhabitants of the greenhouse "run out of steam." nine0003
What you need

In containers, specially designed varieties of cucumbers with compact vines, small leaves and increased endurance are best suited for this purpose.

Each plant needs a personal pot (always with drainage holes) with a capacity of at least 5-7 liters, filled with loose fertile soil. But at the bottom under the substrate, you need to pour 2–3 cm of broken brick or expanded clay. It is very good to mix the already soaked hydrogel into the soil (up to 25% of the volume). Think in advance of the supports that will support the whips. Very convenient tapestries in the form of wire or wooden structures attached to the pot. But separate tapestries are also suitable, including the twine fixed above. nine0003
Pots and forms

Cucumbers are formed by adapting the shape of the bush to the height of the existing trellis. With a structure height of about 1 meter, the lower 2–3 knots are blinded. In the third and fourth ovaries are left, but the side shoots are plucked out. Leave the branches above and to the center of the trellis, but pinch them into 2 sheets. Even higher, 3-4 leaves are left at the side shoots. The top of the stem is pinched either at the height of the trellis, or higher, but then the whip is fixed and directed down, further stopping its growth at a height of 50 cm from the pot. nine0003
Special attention

In dry weather, cucumbers in containers without adding hydrogel to the substrate will have to be watered daily, with hydrogel - approximately in the same mode as in a greenhouse. You will have to feed the plants about once every 5-7 days. You need to collect greens as they appear.
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Cucumber in pots

8 Tips for Successfully Growing Cucumbers In Pots