Posted by ribbonknight on June 01, 2013 at 15:09 and edited at May 27, 2019 at 05:07
PermalinkThe first plant is a cucumber, Mexican sour gherkin, which I've grown from seed. Firstly, yay, the things I grew from seed this year have been way more successful than last year!
The cucumber looks like this:
There's a little tendril coming up the top - if this vines, am I supposed to do something when it's this young to encourage growth? Is it big enough that I should be potting this already? Also, I planted a couple seeds in each segment of the black plastic planter (there are two segments being used here). Am I supposed to murder the weakest one, so that only one plant per segment survives?
Secondly, I have questions about this awesome thyme plant (NOT grown from seed!), which looks like this:
Obviously I need to repot it into a bigger container. But am I supposed to be trimming (pruning? Can it be pruning if there's no fruit??) this, or just letting it grow wild? If trimming, how do you decide what to cut off?
3 comments
Your thyme plant looks so happy! It does look like it might want to be in a larger pot pretty soon.
At the farm when we'd harvest thyme, we just grabbed fistfuls and sliced it off where it was still tender, leaving plenty back. I'm sure others have more specific advice, but in general I think thyme is pretty easy-going. You probably want to cut it back periodically so it doesn't start to flower, I guess.
I'm not sure about the cukes, but I can ask Kriss tomorrow for you when I'm out at the farm!
Pruning thyme is exactly the same as harvesting it :) Just cut bits off and use it. If you keep cutting it back, it should grow bushier too.
Wrt the cucumber, I'd repot soon, and kill off the weaker one (or separate and plant both if you can do so easily). I'm not sure whether that particular cucumber wants a frame to climb on, but google "cucumber frames" for tips/ideas… I grew a supposedly non-frame-needing cucumber last year but I think it would have been happier with a frame after all.
I'm so excited you're growing the gherkin! Also, hooray!!, for how those gherkin seeds just keep on germinating even tho' they're probably 4 or 5 years old now. \o/
From my experience with that gherkin:
+) Yours looks like it's definitely big enough to pot. Especially if it's starting to get tendrils, which are the things that will grab onto a frame to help it climb upward / stay upright.
+) You can either murder the 2nd one or pot it up (if you think you'll have room) or give it to someone else who has room and would want to grow it.
+) I'm not sure what size pot to suggest you put it in, because i grow all my big plants in homemade self-watering containers. I would try to put it in a medium-to-large sized pot.
+) You will need something for the plant to trellis upon. I bought 3 cheap pieces of wood at the hardware store, then wrapped acrylic yarn around the wood (stapling it to the wood every few inches). It worked fairly well.
+) It's going to get tall. I shall attempt to embed a picture of mine from last year so that you can see:
I'm about 5'4"/5'5". The greenhouse in the background is taller than i am. The gherkin growing on its frame is taller than the greenhouse. It got so tall it flopped over a bit at the top because it ran out of frame to hold onto (note: being flopped over like that didn't seem to bother the plant at all).
More advice: The vines get floppy and greedy and will attempt to grab onto ANYTHING on your deck, so you'll either want to keep the gherkin in a corner away from the other plants or you'll want to check on it every other day to untangle the tendrils from other plants. I, um, curated mine regularly to encourage it to twine its way up my frame.
I hope your gherkin grows well!! Those things are SO TASTY.