The Amateur's Greenhouse and Conservatory/Chapter 20
CHAPTER XX.
SUMMER CUCUMBERS AND SEEDLING PELARGONIUMS.
The cucumber properly belongs to the kitchen-garden aud frame-ground, but a few words on our mode of producing summer cucumbers will probably be valued by many readers of this volume, for we have, during many years past, very profitably occupied with them a house that during winter is filled with seedling pelargoniums. It happens, too, for our encouragement, that about nine-tenths of all that has been written about cucumbers in horticultural papers has related to the winter management, an implication, perhaps, that to grow cucumbers in summer needs so little skill that there need be very little said about it. To be sure, it is easy enough to grow them, even in common frames, with or without fermenting material, yet the cutting of a cucumber fit for the table is an extraordinary event in some few gardens where only one man is kept. But never mind about relative difficulty, and all that sort of thing: cucumbers are much more in demand during summer than winter, and our way of growing them is the most simple ever heard of, and the results are all that could be desired, and much more than, in ten thousand like cases, would be expected.
To begin, then: we do not employ artificial heat at any stage of the business, not a particle of fermenting material, and the plants are positively ornamental, and when full of fruit present a most beautiful appearance, which cucumbers in frames never do. The summer cucumber house is a narrow span-roofed “Paxtonian,” put up about twenty years ago by Hereman and Morton. There is simply nothing at all peculiar in it, save and except the well-known Paxtonian principle. On each side of the central path is a border of earth supported by skirting-boards. On the lights are fixed stout iron brackets for the support of open shelves, and from October to the end of May the house is filled with seedling geraniums in tiers one above the other from ground-line to roof. Of course these need artificial heat, and that is provided in the usual way by means of hot-water pipes. But there is an end of firing here long before the cucumbers are planted, and these, as above remarked, are grown without the aid of heat from first to last—that is, as the word “heat” is commonly understood.
The seeds are sown in small pots, in light stuff, about the end of March, but the early part of April is none too late. The seed pots are placed on a top shelf in this same house, or in any other house where they can have the full benefit of sunshine. In due time the plants appear, and they are not stopped. By careful nursing they soon take their places in 48-size pots, and by the time they have filled these pots with roots the house is being cleared for the summer. The shelves are all removed, and a bed of fresh soil is made up in the border on each side. This consists chiefly of turfy loam, with a small allowance of rotten manure and gritty leaf-mould. A rich soil is not to be desired, but the bed should have at least a foot depth of fresh material on it every year; for the stuff that has received the drip of watering all the winter will not do for cucumbers.
The plants are not put out until the border has been well warmed by the sun, this process being hastened by shutting the house close for a few days. In the centre of every light is placed a plant with a stick to support it; and thereafter at every opportunity a careful man constructs a trellis, first by means of a few lengths of stout copper wire running length-ways, and then vertical lengths of cheap tarred twine are added as required by the advancing vines. It may appear by the story a tedious business, but in truth it is all so simple that it is almost a wonder that enough can be said about it to make even one short chapter. The house is kept close for at least a week after planting, unless, indeed, the sunshine is very strong, and then air is given. But the management of the plants is directed to securing a vigorous growth, and if there is an early show of fruit we remove it; in fact, not one cucumber is allowed to swell until the vines have nearly reached the top of the house. As the house stands east and west, the south side has to be slightly shaded. This is accomplished by splashing the glass with thin whitewash, so as to mottle it. Air is given plentifully after the first week. The syringe is used freely every evening, when the house is closed. Water is given at the roots as required; sometimes they go a fortnight without a single drop more than falls upon the leaves and the soil from the syringe; or during hot dry weather they may need to be well watered at the roots two or three times a week.
Here the story should end. But it may be well to add that abundance of room is allowed amongst the vines; that the crop
PAXTONIAN CUCUMBER-HOUSE, STOKE NEWINGTON.
is severely thinned throughout the season; that in spite of severe thinning the produce is enormous and constant, so that the spectacle presented by the house when the vines are in full bearing calls forth exclamations of surprise, not only from the uninitiated, but from experienced practicals. Yet one word more. Seasons differ immensely, and we have always adapted our movements to the state of the weather and the indications of the barometer. Yet during the past seven years the dates of planting cucumbers in this house, the dates of cutting the first fruit, and the dates of taking down the worn-out vines, have varied so slightly that we might from those dates conclude that this climate is one of the most constant on the face of the earth. We know it to be otherwise, but no matter. Our average date of sowing the seed has been March 20; of planting out, June 6; of cutting the first fruit, July 3; thence to the middle of October the appearance of the house is represented in the accompanying sketch. The Sion House breed suits best for this off-hand system, and the best of that breed is Rollisson’s Telegraph, but Cuthill’s Black Spine also answers admirably.
The seedling pelargoniums that occupy this house all the winter are grown in accordance with the directions given in the chapter on the subject.