I always wonder whether I should prune the side shoots of my cucumber plant to make it more productive. I find out about this in google The problem is that the female flowers are mostly found on the side shoots and the main vine will just have a couple of it. Because of this I usually cut the side vine after the third leaves to let the female flower grow to maturity. I am just wandering if I just cut of all the side vine will I get more female flowers on the main vine?
Well KK, I usually cut some side shoots, but not all until getting towards the end of it’s fruiting season. At that point I remove the last of the side shoots so that the plant can channel it’s nutrition and energy to the remaining fruits.
Pac and Clay— thank you so very much for your nice words. I shall go to bed soon with a big smile. Cheers.
Thanks for the video Pacnorwest. Thanks for the tip Sjoerd and I will just do that. I guess I was just greedy and mislead. I believe the video and other cucumber pruning sites have different species from mine. They never mention it. I remember when I first planted cucumber I used to get decent yield without pruning. I only cut off those that are very close to the ground. Then someone told me about pruning and I research on the web and was convinced. This is an example of one of those videos. The productivity starts to fall and I was confused. OK I should have gone back to basic which I will do now.
Well KK, there’s nothing wrong with pruning. It is a question of knowing when and how much to prune. For me, it came with experience. Back then I could not find any info that was in consistent agreement with others, so I just began doing it and every year I seemed to get a little better at it. I do not grow them every year, because for me it is a question of space. Good luck this season.
Yes I do agree with you Sjoerd that there is nothing wrong with pruning. I just followed blindly like the video and I only get 2 cucumbers from a plant. I normally plant 1 or 2 plants and that would give us enough cucumbers for a while including pickling. I guess I have to experiment to learn. Thanks for your comment.
I have been pruning mine up a trellis as a single vine bascially for a few years now. Now that you mention this, you might be right. I dont think I have gotten near the amount of cucumbers as when I let them sprawl on the ground. Growing on the ground isnt good here becaue of disease so I have to keep stuff off the ground. I will let some suckers grow up the trellis this year and see what happens.
Mater, I am seeing more female flowers now all on the side vines and still none on the main vine. Yes it isn't good to let them grow on the ground. I tie a lose knot on the side vine with a twine and attached it to the top of the trellis so that the side vine can climb up too.
I never heard of pruning cucumber vines until recently on you tube videos. There are lots of gardening videos on you tube. But I only listen to a few of them. Some of them have bad advice like using poisons in the garden. Or the gardener is just plain irritating, and I cannot stand listening to them. Some do not speak English well, and I have trouble understanding them. Sometimes I find some really good ideas though, even though the gardener may live on the other side of the planet, many ideas can still work in other places. You can use straw mulch under your vines like cucumbers or melons to protect the fruits. Or they can climb things. I hope your cucumbers all do well. I need a bigger garden for all of the stuff I want to plant....
