For us indoor gardeners the thought of growing fresh vegetables, such as growing cucumbers, has a real intriguing lure about it.
Growing your own vegetables is of course nothing new but for anyone new to indoor gardening it is a way of self-reliance. A liberating thought.
In fact, many people don’t realize just how simple it is to grow your own cucumbers in an indoor garden. It’s easier than you may think.
To start growing cucumbers indoors you will need a few items:
- Cucumber seeds – the dwarf variety are good for indoor growing, due to size limitations
- A large pot – even dwarf cucumbers need space and room to grow
- Soil and Compost
- Water
That’s it. Just 4 items are needed to grow cucumbers indoors. You can even buy indoor cucumber growing packs online that come with everything you need.
Let’s run through a step-by-step guide to help get you started:
Step 1 – Choose and Purchase Cucumber Seeds
The first step, and most vital part, are the cucumber seeds.
There are different types of cucumber seeds but as we are planning to grow them indoors, with limited pot space, it may be better to stick to dwarf cucumber seeds.
These can be purchased online or from any garden center or store. They can also be found in some grocery stores too.
With your cucumber seeds ready to go, we need somewhere to plant them.
Step 2 – Select a Good Size Garden Pot
Cucumbers need space!
You’ll need a good size garden pot to grow your cucumbers. Although we will plant several seeds, each stem will be removed periodically leaving behind the strongest stems, until we are left with one.
This one will continue to grow the one cucumber you will be left with. There will not be room inside the pot, even a large one, for any more than one.
Step 3 – Prepare Your Pot with some Ground Stones, Compost and Soil
With your cucumber seeds, and plant pot ready to go, we need to make some preparations.
This is typical with growing many different plants and vegetables. Fortunately, nothing new or different is required for cucumber growing.
You’ll first need to line the plant pot with small stones and gravel.
Next add the compost and soil. A mixture of 50 50 should suffice.
Step 4 – Plant Your Cucumber Seeds
Now we’re ready for the actual planting – the fun part!
Your cucumber seeds should be planted around 0.5 to 0.75 inches from the top of the soil, which is around 12mm-18mm.
Top Tip: Keep the seeds separated as much as possible, and not too close to the edge of the plant pot. Give each one an equal circumference to give them as much chance as possible to grow.
Step 5 – Add Water
Now it’s time to give your new seedlings some growth tonic – also known as water.
Make sure you are particularly generous with the first watering, but of course don’t flood the pot!
Step 6 – Plenty of Window Sunshine is Required
Your indoor cucumber plant will need plenty of sunlight to aid in its growth.
Place it near a window where plenty of sunlight is likely, somewhere south facing will be ideal, as it’ll get the longest amount of sunlight than in any other direction.
Avoid facing the cucumber plant at a window to the North, as sunlight will be very limited.
Step 7 – Remove Weaker Stems to Allow the Strongest to Grow
As the cucumber seeds start to turn in to stems, you will need to keep removing the weaker stems to give more and more room to the strongest.
The first time you will do this is when your seeds are between 3 inches and 4 inches.
Carefully remove the weaker, less developed stems without disturbing the stronger ones.
You will need to do this as each stem grows until the very end where you will have just one plant left that will grow a cucumber!
Step 8 – Add a Vine for Support
As the stems grow, they will become very top heavy and liable to droop as gravity pulls it towards the ground.
To prevent this, or damage to your cucumber plant, you will need to add a vine for your plant to grow up and provide support.
Step 9 – Your Fully Grown Cucumber
After around 8-9 weeks (around 2 months) your cucumber should be fully grown. This can vary but is a good indication.
In Conclusion
Growing a cucumber inside is a really easy thing to do.
It does take time, and patience and can lead to disappointment if seeds do not develop properly.
Like all plants and vegetables, especially when growing indoors, you need to make sure they get enough water and enough sunlight.
Heat indoors can dry up moisture inside a plant pot, so regular watering – more so than you would do with outdoors plans – is encouraged.