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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.