This is John Kohler with www.growingyourgreens.com have another exciting episode for you.
Today we're going to do something totally different and something that you've probably
never heard of actually.
What I am doing today and what we're doing in the garden is actually that I'm pruning
my cucumbers.
That's right, just like you can prune or single stem tomatoes, you can also prune or single
stem cucumbers.
And I'm doing this for one very important reason.
Because I am growing in close quarters, and growing like probably five different crops
in this raised bed, which is a four foot raised bed.
I'm growing, you know parsley, celery, and then the cucumbers are supposed to grow vertically
up the trellis.
If I don't train them properly, and you know cut off some of the suckers, they actually
tend to cover the parsley and then these celery plants.
So what we want to do is we want them to grow upright, and once they get pretty far up on
a single stem, then I'll let them bush out and produce even more.
So what we're going to do first is we're not going to single stem the cucumbers first.
What we're going to do is, show you an example on a tomato because it is a lot easier to
understand on a tomato then we're going to come over and show you an example on the cucumber.
So let's head over to the tomatoes and uh check it out.
Now, we're over at my tomato bed where I'm growing a whole bunch of different tomatoes
and this is an easier way to determine what a sucker is.
And a sucker is very simple, and what you want to look or think about when pruning suckers
cause it's kinda a hard concept to get if you're not thinking about it, I'll have to
try to explain it in layman's terms.
Basically what you can think of is your tomato plant or your cucumber plant like a tree.
All the trees like the fig tree behind me has a nice large trunk and it goes up the
trunk and out of the trunk there's like branches with leaves, so just like a tomato plant.
Right here, we've got the main trunk or the main stem of the tomato.
And as it goes up, it's going to have branches with leaves, and that's what these are.
They're branches with the leaves only.
And between the trunk and each leaf that comes out, what's called, it's called an armpit.
So this is an armpit here because we've got the main trunk and a leaf and in the armpit
there's a little sucker.
So this one's pretty small and so we're going to go up the main stem and this one is the
main stem right here and then you can see this one goes up here and continues.
And right here there is a leaf and you can see right in the armpit here there is a little
sucker here and so we're going to just go ahead and pinch that guy off.
So this is a little sucker and it's like if we were the tomato plants, remember my whole
body is like the stem, my arm is like where the leaves are going to come out, and right
in my armpit is going to be the sucker.
And now we'll pull these suckers and you can actually put these suckers actually keep them
wet in dirt and these guys will actually root and make new plants if you want to use them
that way.
Or you can just compost these as well.
So that's how you do it on a tomato plant.
So now that you see the easy illustration, we're going to the cucumber plant which actually
has a few more things to deal with.
And we'll explain that when we get there.
So, now we're back at the cucumbers and we're going to be pruning these out and we're going
to show you guys how to chop out the suckers on them but before we do that, there are a
few tool, or a few things you will need.
Number one, I always like to have a five gallon bucket to put all my cuttings or the prunings
that I'm putting in.
Then, I'll take this to my compost pile.
Aside from that, the other thing we'll need is, we'll need a thing of clips because after
all the reason we are pruning these guys is because to train them up the trellis.
This is a six foot tall trellis.
And we'll need to clip them up so instead of using string that can be kind of a pain
and that can't easily be reused, I like these little clips that are designed for plants
and that I have another episode on this if you are interested in it.
Umm that we can just reuse later, and easily clip these to get them to grow upward.
Also, these are a lot quicker to apply than using something like string or twine.
In addition if the suckers are large you may also need to have some clippers.
If they're small you can kinda just pinch them off.
Now, what we are going to do is show you how the cucumber grows, you can see the base of
the plant here, this is in the ground and this is the main stem.
That is the thing you always want to keep your eye on is the main stem.
Out of the main stem there will be a few things that grow on a cucumber.
Much like the tomato there will be a leaf that comes out, see here's a lead that comes
out.
And I think that is one of the baby leaves that is still hanging on.
And you can continue to follow the stem up as the stem goes up further it is going to
send out more leaves.
And this is a leaf right here and also the stem is going to continue so at that junction
between where the leaf comes out and the stem goes up will be a sucker.
So this, sucker is a whole new unique plant.
And this is the whole new unique plant here.
So what we are going to do is we're going to try to carefully pinch this guy off.
And here it is and unlike tomatoes you can't put this whole thing into the ground and root
it, I've never had success doing that, there might be a way.
So we're going to go ahead and compost that.
So if we continue to go up, you'll see you know, a whole bunch of other things including
flowers and these are where their fruits are going to form and there's a few more suckers
we're going to actually have to pinch off.
Here's one here but we're going to go up a little bit more and show you the real easy
example.
Right here, we can see the main stem still going up.
And at this point, this is the stem on my top finger and on my bottom finger.
And up here we have a leaf coming out, In addition to the leaf we have these flowers
and the fruit forming.
So this is where the flowers and the fruit are going to be forming.
In addition we have the little sucker which is this guy so we can literally just clip
this off.
That was really easy.
In addition you are also going to get that little wrap around thing.
I don't know the technical name but this little wrap around thing will go.
And here's one in example of which.
These things actually wrap around and will help to uh you know climb the trellis itself.
Now they're not always super effective on cucumbers so that's why we're going to be
pinning them up to make sure.
There's multiple things that come out on the cucumber, unlike the tomatoes.
So once again, you've got the main stem coming up, you also have a leaf coming out, you also
have that little tendril thing that catches onto stuff, and you also have got the fruiting
points.
So you want to make sure that you just get the suckers alone.
So we're probably going to do that and let these go single stem up to maybe at least
three or four feet.
And then we're just going to let them branch out and do what they want.
After they are out of the way and you know there's now going to be able to get full sun
on the celery and the parsley down below.
So hopefully in this episode you learned how to prune your cucumbers.
Now is this absolutely necessary?
Absolutely not.
This is the first year actually I am pruning my cucumbers.
If you catch them early enough you can train them up pretty well without taking out the
suckers.
We planted these so densely and so close together that if we don't prune off the suckers, it's
just going to be as jumbled mess.
If you have a lot of Acreage then, just let them grow out on the ground and sprawl and
sucker out as much as you want.
But in the tight confined quarters I definitely recommend at least pulling off the suckers
for a little bit until they are more established and out of the way for the plants down below.
So hopefully now if you are growing cucumbers vertically you know how to prune off your
suckers.
So once again, my name is John Kohler with www.growingyourgreens.com we'll see you next
time and remember, keep on growing.