Preparing cucumber seeds for sowing. It would seem nothing complicated...

Surely, in every housewife’s garden bed an important place is reserved for cucumbers. But their harvest depends on the quality of the seeds. How to prepare cucumber seeds so that all your neighbors will envy your harvest? It would seem nothing complicated, but...

Content:

• Preparing cucumber seeds for sowing
• Sowing cucumbers

Preparing cucumber seeds for sowing

Before sowing, the seeds must be carefully sorted and the most suitable ones selected. To do this, place them in a container with liquid and wait a few minutes. Next, a special saline solution is prepared (the ratio of table salt and water is 3:1) and soaked seeds are added to it.

In order to reject unnecessary seeds from the entire quantity, it is necessary to pour the resulting composition from one container to another several times.

All floating seeds are thrown away, and the rest are well washed to remove salt and dried.

• The next stage is to separate the remaining seeds by size. They need to be planted separately, in accordance with the parameters.
• To disinfect your seeds it is necessary to keep them for at least 3 hours at a temperature of 60°C. After which the treatment is carried out with a weak solution of potassium permanganate with the addition of boric acid (1 g of potassium permanganate per 10 liters of water and 0.2 g of boric acid) for 15 minutes. Finally, you need to rinse the seeds with running water.
• It has recently become popular to expose seeds to ultraviolet irradiation. This enhances growth and improves the health of future seedlings.The irradiation process lasts from 1 to 5 minutes, then the seeds must be isolated from light sources for some time. A regular black photo paper bag is suitable for these purposes.
• To saturate the seeds with microelements, you should prepare a special mixture. Take 2 tablespoons of ash and infuse in 1 liter of liquid for 2 days. The seeds are placed in the resulting solution and remain in it for about 3 hours, after which they need to be dried well. Flower shops also sell special mixtures with a ready-made set of microelements.

After carrying out all the above procedures, your seeds need to be hardened. To do this, they are first wrapped in a rag soaked in water (or buried in damp sand) and maintaining a temperature of +20 +25°C, wait until they swell.

It is important to ensure that the seeds are constantly in a moist environment.

After swelling, they are placed in the same cloth in the refrigerator for several days (the temperature should be about -1 -3°C).

Sowing cucumbers

Cucumbers are sown in late March - early April. Dry seeds germinate in 5-8 days, and already sprouted seeds germinate in 2-3 days. At this time they are put in greenhouses or warm greenhouses. In the future, you can get 150-170 seedlings, using 0.5-0.8 g of seeds.

Growing season

It is very important that young shoots are not exposed to spring frosts. Before sowing, it is necessary to take into account the temperature of the soil and air. It is better to wait for these indicators to reach the positive mark (the ground should warm up to +10 + 15°C, and the air + 15°C). As a rule, such weather occurs at the end of May - the first half of June. And finally - recommendations from experienced gardeners: