Keep killing my cucumbers

[amandaandherveg]

I am now on cucumber no 5. The lady in the garden centre now thinks I'm quite mad/useless.

I've grown everything from seed apart from cucumbers. Every plant I have bought rots at the bottom of the stem, goes all mushy and brown then dies. What's going wrong/ Am I overwatering or should the stem sit on top of the compost? It lives in the greenhouse.

[Kristen]

Nice big pot. 11" diameter.

Finish the soil about 2" below where you normally would (i.e. 2" down from the bottom of the rim, which is probably itself 1.5" - 2" - so you will be getting close to a 4" gap from the top of the pot to the finished soil level).

Make sure you plant the Cue so that the soil level in the original pot, and the soil level in the container you put it in is the same.

Make a cone of compost around the stem to the plant about 2" up the stem. i.e. when you water the pot the water should run away from the stem towards the sides of the pot. This will keep the stem drier, and is probably the key thing to helping avoiding stem rot.

When you first plant it in a big pot it won't need a great deal of water - the soil in the big pot will hold a lot. Before the first time you water the pot just push it at the top until it leans over a bit. How much "effort" does that take? Now water it, for the first time, with plenty of water. Let it drain for a few minutes. Push it again, how much effort is that? If you reckon you can tell the difference then you can use that as a test to see when the pot is drying out, and how much water to give. And if you find, one day, that it takes no effort at all to make the pot lean over then hurry up and water it!

Until the roots have grown into the bigger pot you can also stick your finger down the side of the compost to see how moist it is.

When the plant grows larger its roots will fill the pot and it will have a lot of leaves, and then it will need more water.

Try to water little-and-often. If you are home then I would suggest morning, noon and early evening (5-6PM). If you are at work then before you go, and when you come back.

Good luck!

[steelsy]

I've managed to kill 3 now as well - giving up for this year I think! lol!

[SarzWix]

Water from the bottom - sit the pot in a saucer or tray and water into that rather than into the top of the pot, and not too much unless the sun is blazing down. And if it's in a tiny pot, just plant it up in stages, not straight into it's final pot.
Good luck with this one