No Birds, No Bees: My Cucumbers Are Growing Indoors in Water

This is a Sumter cucumber grown from seeds that I bought at an end of season 10 packets for $1 sale. Although we live in a mild climate, our home is an upstairs condo, so a regular garden was out of the question. So after germination and a few weeks of growth in mildly fertilized water, I "planted" this cucumber seedling in Hydroton grow rocks purchased online from a hydroponics store, and fed it liquid solution consisting of filtered water mixed with General Hydroponics Flora Series nutrients.

Although there are more sophisticated ways of providing aeration to the roots of a plant grown in water, in this case I simply filled a plastic food container, with holes punched in the bottom for drainage, with Hydroton grow rocks, then set it in a larger container filled with water. I put a stake in the container before adding the rocks in anticipation of the cucumber plant needing a place to vine up. It will be my job to lift the inner container up and out to allow the water to drain once or twice a day. A third container, an opaque one, will go on the outside to keep light from encouraging algae growth on the rocks and roots. I cut the lid that came with this food container in half, and cut holes to go around the stake and the stem, and put the lid on top of the container, too, to cut down the amount of light entering from the top.

The task of mixing nutrients seemed overwhelming at first, but I decided to try a simpler method. For my purposes, it was not important to have maxium yield or the largest possible fruit. I just wanted an attractive plant that grew, bloomed, and produced something tasty we could eat. Keeping in mind that the concentrated nutrients, which come in three "flavors" (Gro, Micro, and Bloom), need to be diluted before mixing in order to prevent the minerals from binding, I came up with this system:

1. New plant is fed 3 ml of Grow, 2 ml of Micro, and 1 ml of Bloom per liter of filtered water.
2. Growing plant is fed 2 ml Grow, 2 ml Micro, and 2 ml Bloom per liter.
3. Flowering and Fruiting plant is fed 1 ml Grow, 2 ml Micro, and 3 ml Bloom per liter.

After thinking it through, I realized that the 2:2:2 ratio could be made simply by using half of the new plant ratio (3:2:1) and half of the flowering and fruiting ratio (1:2:3), so I only had to mix two kinds of nutrient solution. When the plant was very young, I used the the 2:2:2 ratio, but diluted to half strength, changing to the 3:2:1 ratio after the seedling was well-established and continuing with that until buds began to form. Then I switched to the full strength 2:2:2 mix. After flowers started opening, I changed to the 1:2:3 mix. Since some of the solution evaporates off, leaving that behind a bit more concentrated, I topped off with water every few days. The rest of the time, I topped off with pre-mixed nutrients. To make this process easier, when I set up the containers, I marked two lines on the middle container. One was the fill line, and the other was the drain line, which shows how full the container should be with the plant completely out. Only the drain line is really necessary, but the fill line gives a reference.

This kind of cucumber plant normally produces quite a few male flowers before the first female flower is formed, then it produces both kinds, as the male flowers are still needed to produce pollen. In the accompanying photos you can see the male flower, which has a straight skinny stem, and the female flower with its green bulge at the base. After pollination, the flower will shrivel up and fall off and a delicious Sumter cucumber will continue to grow until it approaches six inches in length. That is, it will if I can keep from picking it sooner.

Also pictured is the full plant. Tendrils form shortly before the first male flower opens, and curl around the stake to help it climb up. With this plant it can be quite a while from the time the male flowers start opening before the first little bulges show below new buds. However, it is important to keep an eye out, as when the flowers buds appear, although they take longer to open than the earlier ones, these flowers only stay open for a day or so, and must be hand-pollinated before they close up again. All that is needed is to cut off a male flower, cutt the petals away to expose the pollen-laden interior and brushed that inner part against the center of each female flower. It is not unusual to have several open at once on this sturdy and prolific plant. Although the seed packet indicated 45 days to flower, in several trials I found that grown in this way, fruit begins to set approximately sixty days after planting.