19/03/2014 I planted my cucumber seeds directly into the rockwool, out of 4 only 1 sucessfully sprouted and I assume it was to incorrect PH. One also sprouted upside down, the roots came out the top and the sprout was pushing out the bottom. 23/03/2014 - (Day 1) I moved my cucumber plant under my 600w HPS, the grow is officially started 03/04/2014 - (Day 10) The plant has been under the light for just over a week and it didn't grow much but I was happy to see the roots were growing well. The second picture shows my general grow area, the cardboard was to cover the medium, incase you're wondering. I wish I had previous photos but it has transformed from a small seedling with one leave to this in 5-6 days And finally a picture of my general setup 07/04/2014 - (Day 14) In the past 4 days the plant has more than doubled it size, the roots were coming out of the net pot and I didn't realise it at the time but there was flowers developing (cucumbers) (second picture). If you can see the front leave has a lime green colour to it, this is because of excess chlorine, from now on the water will be left out overnight beforehand so chlorine can escape. ----------------------------------------------------- 09/04/2014 - (Day 16) This is when I noticed the cucumbers growing so I took a much better picture, the growth seemed to be taking off at this point. 10/04/2014 - (Day 17) If you look at the last picture above, you'll see the cluster of new leaves that exploded overnight (pic below). This really impressed me and it so happened around the time I changed the light period from 19/5 to 17/7. I also got my first tendrill these grip onto the surroundings to provide support (Tendril) -------------- 12/04/2014 - (Day 19) 2 Days later, I now have 2 tendrills, both of them have unwound and everytime I check up on my plant they have moved. The cucumbers are getting bigger and the stems going a really dark green, it looks very healthy. I am considering trying to scrogg this plant, it seemed like the perfect candidate. If you can see the tendrill, it has now unwound and is searching for something to anchor itself too. ------------------------- 13/04/2014 - (Day 20) The cucumber plant is growing rediculously fast And here's a shot of the developing cucumbers The first picture of my new strawberry plant, it was store bought and has white residue on it, I hope it's nothing but it doesn't wash off , the soil was a pain to wash away so I just threw it in the clay pellets in it's soil. And my new chillie pepper plant , it still has the seed shell on it's first set of leaves lol 15/04/2014 - (Day 22) On the 14th I pulled the netpot out to check the roots and when I put her back the whole plant tipped to one side, I only used a small rockwool cube and I don't think it has enough support so i've decided to build a 'scrog' net in which I will feed the plant through as she grows. This should increase light absortion and provide support for the cucumbers (please excuse my terrible DIY). Here's a picture of what it looks like at the moment. 21/04/2014 - (Day 28) A lot has happened in 6 days, the plant started to climb through the scrogg netting which is good news, it also shot out a bunch of side branches and it's drinking about a litre of water per day. Then the bad news... Yesterday I noticed the leaves were turning white, I left it for a few hours and it had gotten 10x worse. After some research I found out it was powdery mildew and I removed all the infected leaves, I will be treating it just before the light goes off with baking soda. The net pot also fell through the support, luckily the plant held on thanks to it's tendrills but i'm sure it probably tore some roots apart. The buckket is way to small, it's only 10 litres so I will replace that soon with a real netpot holder. 26/04/2014 As previously mentioned my plant got infected with powedery mildew, I removed any infected leaves and treated it with a solution of soap, baking soda and water. A couple days later and the mildew had came back, I thought it would be best to trim off any infected spots but my plant was looking more and more like a stick... So I bought some anti-fungi spray and only removed the seriously damaged leaves, the same night I noticed my air pump was floating on the top, when I took the plant out the bucket I noticed some signs of root rot. Anyway the next day it was wilting very badly and the day after most the plant had dried out. I don't know if the mildew killed it, the stress of leave removal, the baking soda/soap or the anti-fungi spray, but it was probably a combination. There was one cucumber that was still kinda alive with the plant, the rest had rotten, so my harvest was one very small cucumber.
I underestimated how strong the stems were going to be, but it's supposed to be a vine plant so I was hoping I could feed it through a net but I think i've missed my chance. I may try it with tomatoes as you can even 'top' them so they produce 2 main stems instead of 1.
ScrOGing cucumbers is a great idea. All the leaves at the top doing what they should do and the fruit hanging freely underneath
when im growing my tomatoes i keep them single stemmed. next year i think i will try and train them to get a few main stems
I plan to try cayenne and Thai chili peppers on my next grow. I wanted to try watermelon but by the looks of you cucumbers. I don't think it will work.
Great job. This plant is a staple of my garden year around. I once grew an entire garden in my tent next to my medicine to see if I could. Was an interesting year. I ended up using my grow tent to start all seedlings then transferred them carefully to my outdoor garden. Had more food that year than I knew what to do with. The main downside to growing veggies under hids is the cost. Other than that its a blast imo.
Ahh Shit man, I was loving this grow, it had so much potential. Are you going to have another crack at it?
Yes I am going to buy a bunch of new seeds on Monday and better equipment, it might not be cucumbers be it'll be some kind of fruit/veg. I'll update everything on here