Dishtub Cuke

Materials:  $4.72, plus stuff I had on hand. Making a second would cost $1.88 (a second dish tub - have leftover paint tray liners and scrubby net ).

Built net pots inspired by this how-to article.

In hindsight, I think the idea was to keep less of the bottle top, and suspend the net from the lid. That wouldn't work well in this case, anyway, though. My lid is flimsy, really only to keep light out, not suspend heavy things. And I think it would break the cuke roots to pull the lid up after the roots grow into the hydroton. Such is life.

Though it's a 3-gallon dishtub, only about 1.75 gallons fit into it, what with the depth of the lid and hydroton displacement.

And placed on hearth in my office under my old two-T8 seed-starting lights rig (still same bulbs). I grew a cuke under these lights this summer, in a soil pot, but thought there wasn't enough light, and unfortunately put it outside, where it didn't fare too well. Later, maybe I'll add a second cheap shop light, for 4 48" lights.

Added seedling heat mat the next day - cukes like heat. Unfortunately, I have no warm spots to give them for the next 4+ months. This spot should stay around 60-70 degrees through the winter. (A lot warmer than the garage...)

So far so good. Eventually, will probably have only 1 cucumber plant in that volume of light space, but will see how far two get. Will probably put other things under the lights while the cukes grow, but they get big fast.

Thanks, Baldy2! Fingers crossed...

In retrospect, I think the hydroton growrocks are superfluous here. Probably could have just tied the net really tight to the bottle tops to provide a bottom, then suspended the sponges that way from the flimsy lid.

Thanks re the welcome to the cuke club. I could have scrimped further, yeah.

The goal being to make the harvest cost less than buying cucumbers, electricity included. Of course, I don't buy supermarket cukes, because I got spoiled and they don't taste good to me anymore. But you know what I mean.

 So far so good. They look about normal for 1 week cuke seedlings.

 There being a lot of extra light atm, added a little heatwave lettuce buddy. Yes, I could make another dishtub for them, but the idea with this unit is that I can move it around to use spillover light wherever, even put it in a cold window now and then. Planted the same time as the cukes. I started two lettuce pods for this, but one got repurposed.

Good info, Judith! Which varieties you tried liked/disliked the trashcan? Of course, it may be hard to tell, vs. weather and bugs, etc.

Definitely, fingers crossed on everyone's early winter cukes!

Thanks, Judith, re the Park's Diva. Interesting. This tendergreen cuke isn't my favorite of the 4 I grew this summer (I prefer both Japanese and Pearl), but it sure seemed the most tolerant of bad conditions, and most likely to have more than 2 cukes developing at once. And they're good - far better than anything I've had from an American supermarket.

Yikes. Added pH Down last night and didn't check the pH - I used less pH Down than I normally use of pH Up on my Deluxe - and the dishtub has over twice as much liquid. Figured I'd just test it today and adjust further, after it had time to mix properly. It went down to 4.0...or lower.

Don't want to make this mistake again. Pretty major setback for the cuke.

pH now around 6 - I can't measure it any closer.

Peat - good to hear! Your plant bounced back and produced great!

I was so bummed to see it this morning, too - expected great things and found ... that.

Today the cuke's first male flower bloomed - 5 weeks. (No picture of that - kid has camera.)

Spent some more time and money this week. Wednesday, invested another $10 on a cheap airstone and pump (Walmart). So far, the cuke hadn't had any aeration - which was also true of Judith's trashcan cukes, so I thought I might get away with it. But the brown-veins leaf-killing disease continues, so... maybe this'll help. The plant looked greener almost instantly, though it seemed plenty green before.

Today, complete drain and refill with pH-and-EC tested FloraMato in rainwater. (pH ~6, EC ~1.8) I hadn't been testing pH on new nutes... bad idea. FloraMato + rainwater = pH around 5 or below...

Also replaced the fluorescent tubes. Not noticeably brighter, but the lettuce seemed kinda pale. Want to add a second 2-tube shoplight before the cuke bears fruit.

Got my camera back. Younger part of plant looking great, three male flowers have bloomed so far, but the two biggest leaves are already goners. I looked around at cuke leaf diseases, and don't find this, and haven't seen it in Peat or Beth's grows, either. The lesions form right at the main leaf veins. So, my theory remains that it's leaf damage from sweating too-acid nutes. But, if any more leaves die of this (and I keep on top of the nute pH), that blows that theory.

Just saw this new brown icky precipitate for the first time today. Dunno what that's about... Maybe I can skim it out.

Edit: Hmph. Just retested pH, and it's drifted up this time, to maybe 6.5. Decided to leave it, the plant looks happy, and an inch or three longer than it was yesterday... I have leftover nutes from that batch in a jug, and those are definitely still down around 6.0. Funky.

Yeah... well, skimming didn't work, particularly. It's just sad to toss all that rainwater when I just replaced the nutes Saturday.

I don't know what it is. I left the cuke roots dry (well, the tub empty) for maybe an hour, thinking fresh air would be good for them and they wouldn't dry out in that short a time. Maybe something anaerobic living on the roots or hydroton that died from all the air? There's hydroton residue in the picture, too, but that's like fine red-brown sand - doesn't float around. No smell...

Dishtub cuke is not doing well. New nutes, religious pH checking, air stone - no luck. Before any leaf gets big, it still rots from the inner veins out, browns, and dies. I do like the way this particular variety of cuke doesn't let a little (lot!!!) of leaf death get in the way of it flowering. Pathetic as it looks, I think it would yet produce cukes. (Not from these male flowers, of course.) But it's not well.

I bought some cucino cuke seeds a la Beth's. ($0.60 a seed! oy!) I started two today in matching sponges, so they'll start out equal at germination. Then hoping to plant one in the dishtub, another in a pot, under the same lights, and compare. Cucino are parthenocarpic, and supposed to be good for indoor and cool weather growing.