Refining cucumbers - not only professionals, but also amateur gardeners can do this. With a little instinct and knowing how, every garden owner can increase the yield and extend the harvest. The right finishing technique, the most important tool and what else you should pay attention to.

Fresh organic cucumbers from your own garden are delicious and healthy. In commercial cucumber cultivation, it has long been known that sensitive cucumber plants that are grafted with a robust pumpkin base complement each other in their positive properties. The advantages of grafted cucumber plants are:

  • more vigorous and stronger
  • more powerful
  • more resilient
  • mildew resistant
  • more profitable

They produce more fruit earlier and are of better quality. Refining cucumbers - there is much to be said for it. With the necessary patience, care and a green thumb, anyone can graft cucumbers themselves.

Why graft cucumbers and how does it work?

Anyone who grafts fruit vegetables such as cucumbers lets a young plant from a cucumber and a pumpkin grow together. To do this, cucumber varieties with positive properties are planted on pest- and disease-resistant pumpkin rootstocks.

Cucumbers are refined by a counter-tongue refinement. The most important prerequisite for this is that the stalks of the cucumber and the pumpkin base are of the same thickness and the cut surfaces fit together.

Before grafting, first sow cucumbers and then pumpkin

Sow cucumbers before grafting. As soon as the first green sprouts from the ground after a week, sow the pumpkin seeds. After three to four weeks, when both young plants have grown to ten centimeters, you can graft the cucumbers with the pumpkins.

Counter-tongue grafting of cucumbers - step by step

The most important grafting tool: a sharp knife to cut into the plant stems. Execute refinement as follows:

  • Cut three-quarters of the way down the cucumber stalk from the bottom up, under the cotyledon
  • Cut three-quarters of the way down the squash stalk from top to bottom below the cotyledon
  • Insert both incised leaf tongues into each other
  • Wrap the finishing area with a foil tape or fix it with a clip
  • Spray the grafted plant and plant in a pot with potting soil

In order to successfully grow together, the little plants need light, a temperature of around 25° degrees with high humidity and regular watering. These growing conditions can be found under a grow hood or plastic sheeting on the window sill or in the greenhouse.

Protect the plants from direct sun. After one to two weeks in a warm, humid climate, the grafting point has grown together. Now you can cut off the roots of the cucumber and the top of the pumpkin and plant the new plant in the garden.

Rootstock for grafting cucumbers

The trade offers special sets for simple finishing. Ripe, tasty fruits and fast, healthy growth - all the good qualities in one cucumber variety - that's why it's worth grafting cucumbers.

tips and tricks

Depending on the type of cucumber, you can also use a different cucumber plant as a basis for finishing. However, this should be very robust, otherwise the results leave a lot to be desired.

Category:

Vegetable garden