The Cucumbers

We had to seed-start the cucumbers and never having done it before (I watched my mom seed start a couple of times when I was young but never got involved in it myself) I decided to get a little help. I used the APS system from Gardener’s Supply. A word about that website: it's freakin' awesome whether you're a newbie, an intermediate gardener or whether you've grown anything under the sun for years. They have great tools to make gardening easy. They know that today people aren't living on a farm where they can keep an eye on their garden all day long--we're working at desks and gardening is something that we do as a past-time. I imagine my grandma (and other people who grew up on a farm) might scoff at some of the things I've gotten on the website, like the seed starting kit or the aqua cones, but these things just make it a little easier. I'm not rich, but I'm not hurting for money (yet) so paying a little money to get something that has everything I need to seed start is worth it to me. Plus, the site includes customer reviews, so you can check and see if something really is worth it. (I took a bit of a gamble on the aqua cones, but I need something that will address watering on the back half of the garden without running a drip hose all the way across the backyard. And for $10--the price of two Starbucks lattes--if it fails, I'm not going to freak out about it.)

APS system packaged up.

Man did those cucumbers ever germinate quickly! We put them on top of a radiator since they're supposed to be at around 80 degrees to start the whole germination process. A couple of days later, I pulled off the cover to let the little plants escape! Out of the 24 seeds that we started for the cucumbers, only one never did germinate. The rest all came up like gangbusters.

Cucumbers coming up!

Fast forward about a week and all of a sudden, the vine cucumbers are all over the freakin' place!

Cucumbers Gone Wild

So I decide that they need to be repotted, but I don't have cells to pot them in, or peat pots, like we did at Twixwood. Plus, I need a material that will retain water because they're still just seedlings and need to grow their root systems more. So what did I do? Styrofoam cups. I poked holes in the bottom for drainage.

Cups ready for plants

“Repotted” Vine Cucumbers

We’ll plant them in the ground in about a week.

We spent yesterday working compost and peat moss into our plot against the garage where a good portion of the soil is clay. We went with 1/2 a compressed bushel of peat moss and 160 lbs of compost and I'd say it wasn't nearly enough. We're going to have to take out a huge portion of the dirt next spring and work even more compost and peat moss into the soil. But here's what it looks like now.

Treated Soil