Cucumber help

[noidea]

Hullo, so new to all this so please forgive me.

I was given seeds for cucumbers (believe they are marketmore?) and not having the faintest what I am doing I planted a fair few. I now have about 7 plants, all thriving. They are all between 6-10 inches tall.

Some have what appears to be flowers starting, and some have those spriral tendrils thingys.... (someone like to tell me the correct terminology?!)...

They are on a sunny windowsill and I am worried they are becoming really leggy? Do they do that anyway??? I can't see me being able to put them outside till early July as we have an incredibly windy garden that really suffers from the cold when it's windy too. I know I can cane them up etc but what about the flowering carry on? Do I have to make sure insects get to cucumbers? Or was that something else??

i am getting so confused as I started with a tomatoe plant and some cucumbers and people now keep giving me things. It's like a garden centre in here and I need someone to come sort me out! I am on a very fast learning curve!

Thanks in advance if you have gotten this far. I know stuff about non gardening stuff, honest.

C

[mrskp]

I killed the one and only cucumber given to me last year, so this is my first year of cukes too. I've 3 each of Marketmore and Masterpiece. They're now in black buckets in the g/h, some with flowers on, but I've not got a clue what I should do next either so will watch this thread with interest.

[Dobby]

we have planted our marketmore in the green house and tyed string to a clip near the roof of the green house and wraped it round for suppport its doing ok it has 3 floweres on

[noidea]

I can't have a greenhouse unfortunately.

C

[Sebbster]

I grow my ridge outdoor cucumber up a cane until they reach the trellis which is 3ft - 6ft high. Then I tie them in so the cucumbers hang straight which is to me more aesthetically pleasing than banana shaped.

[Flummery]

If you can't get them in the garden till July make sure they are in a big enough container - I'd go for 7-8" to make sure they have enough root run. They should be OK outdoors soon if you can give them a windbreak of some sort. They don't need any messing about with pollination (Marketmore I mean, it's different for other indoor cukes) and although they can climb they are also happy just scrambling, though you might want to make sure the cukes don't trail on the ground - just supporting them on a brick or tile will help if you can't manage a trellis type thing. Good luck. Some of us have been on that learning curve for many a long year!

[noidea]

Thanks so much. They are going into fairly big pots as I don;t have anything else anyway. I have some bamboo cane that I can stick in too.

If the weather picks up I shall try get them out earlier.

Thanks again.. much clearer now.

C

[Alice]

My Marketmore are living outside Noidea, with my squash and courgettes. I'm covering them over with fleece at night and they all seem to be fine - but they are on a very sunny, south facing terrace.
The Marketmore are in the back row there
and here they are in their fleece
I find curcubits need special care to harden off when they first go outside as they seem to be very soft. No matter how good the weather is I cover them with fleece for their first few outings.