Thursday, May 28, 2015

Growing a Cucumber Plant in a Hanging Basket

I am guardedly declaring that I can feel summer in the air.  Today is in the 80's and even though the weekend will bring cooler temperatures, the long range forecast looks good.  I feel so bad for the people who are having flooding and tornadoes.  It must be a very difficult time for many.

I have mentioned that I am not a vegetable gardener.  We have lousy sandy soil and don't have the love for gardening to work on conditioning it.  I tried the lasagna garden where you put cardboard over the sod and add organic material in layers.  If you search "lasagna garden", you can learn all about it.  It's a great idea and it worked in the past, but now it sits unused.  The trees have grown, and we really don't have a place sunny enough to grow anything.  The only sunny place is in the middle of the yard.  We considered the hay bale gardening but my husband didn't want all those bales sitting in the middle of the yard.  We had given up growing our own fresh vegetables.  Our daughter has a big garden, and we do have access to whatever produce we want.

Then while out shopping for flowers, we saw a sign on the highway.  It said perennials and hanging baskets for sale.  We stopped and there was an aged hippie type fellow watering his plants.  He had a variety of interesting legal plants as opposed to the illegal plants he probably grew in his younger days.  Of course, I have no proof of this.  One of the first things I noticed was a hanging basket of cucumbers.  He said that was his own creation, and it is the perfect way to grow cucumbers.  I never saw that method before, so I bought a basket.  There were small cucumbers already forming on the plants.  We also bought a cherry tomato basket.  We brought them home, and my husband constructed a pole in full sun to hang the plants on.  We will use it for birdfeeders this winter.


We have a cherry tomato plant, two peppers and the cucumber basket.  It will be interesting to see if they continue to produce.  If so, that's my kind of gardening.

This variety is called Eureka.  It is a small cucumber perfect for the basket.

I picked three today.  They only get 4 inches long.

This is a cherry tomato plant.  It is loaded with blossoms and green tomatoes.