Cucumber DWC grow

So I have decided to try and grow vegetables indoors. I am going to do a combination of soil (for certain veggies), and a DWC for my cucumber plant(s).

I started my cucumber seedlings off (as well as dill, carrots, pea's and green onions) in a black rubbermaid container with a hole cut into the lid and a cfl bulb placed over hole to illuminate the box. I planted all the seeds in water soaked pete pellets. Within 3 days my cucumbers had sprouted and a few roots were growing out the edges of the pellet. My other veggies have still yet to sprout (app. 5days).

I placed my cucumber seedlings into my homemade DWC yesterday. In 2 nights one of the roots has grown through my home made net pot and has started to hang towards the water.

I have my lights set to 18/6. As you can see below I am using strictly florescent lighting. (yes I know, with this I probably won't yield many cukes, but it's just for fun. I'm interested to see how many cukes I get just grown with the equipment I have lying around the house.)

I plan on using peroxide, Epsom salts, and molasses during the DWC once my plant tells me it "needs a boost/nutrients". I may end up picking up some hydroponic ferts.. but we'll see with time if I need too. I am also going to add a few more cfl's as the grow gets larger

Day 2 of DWC

Cukes can be REAL picky eaters.
Like your idea. will be watching. {can you make file smaller. }
I have slow dial up.

Day 3

My babies are starting to grow!! Their 2nd set of leaves are starting to open and the roots are swimming for their water

In a past grow (in the same closet), I ended up getting spider mites. Yesterday I found one of my cucumber plants, so I SOAKED the carpet with soap/hot water and sucked it out with my carpet shampooer. You'll see below one area of a leaf that seems damaged (I believe due to the mites).

Tonight I did not see any mites on my cucumbers (over 24hrs since last one), but as a precaution I sprayed down the plants and top of my rubber maid container with diluted dish soap.

Also tonight while trying to cover the base of my plants (to prevent light from reaching the roots), I cracked a leaf in two. I put root gel on the crack and propped it up to allow for it to heal.

Lets just hope all the little kinks have been worked out early in this grow

MrsMcGreggor said:

Cukes can be REAL picky eaters.
Like your idea. will be watching. {can you make file smaller. }
I have slow dial up.

Click to expand...

Sorry about the file size :s. I have shrunk the photo's to app. 125kb. Let me know if this is better for loading and thanks for your interest in this fun project of mine!

nice dude. what light schedule do you run and what will you run to tell it to fruit?

Day 4

The roots are growing like crazy!!

The leaf I cracked is shriveling up to the crack, but I expected that. The 2nd set of leaves are starting to get larger and open up, and I can see the start of the 3rd set

No signs of any more spider mites! Yay! I'll be definitely keeping my eye out for those little buggers.

aintgottabhwd said:

nice dude. what light schedule do you run and what will you run to tell it to fruit?

Click to expand...

I am currently using 18/6. I'm not sure if it's necessary to change the light to have it fruit? Once it's large, I'll see if it starts blooming on its own. If so I probably won't adjust the light schedule... however if it doesn't start blooming on 18/6, I'll switch to 12/12 and see if that kicks it into cucumber baby making. lol

here are some tips for you ...

the light is all wrong .... your running around 3400 K ..... its totally wrong for veg .... you need to run around 6500 k for veg .... save that red light for when you want them to bloom like crazy .... (LOL)

In addition ..... cukes are vines ... and your gonna need ALOT more light then that ...

there is a special way that you have to prune indoor cukes .... inorder to get them to produce fruit ... do some research on that ... in addition you will need something for them to climb on ... trellis or something like that ...

that yellow on the leaves is definitely a nutrient deficiency ... if you want to make it longer invest in a nice balanced nute like botanicare pro grow/bloom/liq karma ... they have a starter pack for like $15 bucks .... and you will really see some roots then! ...

good luck ..... cukes are tough to grow indoors....

Day 5.

Well my baby is still growing strong

I did take a bit of your advice GYOOnline. I am not ready to purchase more equipment as of right now on this grow (it's more of an experiment), but I did have some fertilizer laying around the house. It is a very basic all purpose 10-15-10 liquid fert. I have done research and I know this ISN"T made for hydro set ups (since the nitrogen is usually ammonia/urea based, which can overall cause harm in a hydro set up). I only placed 1/2tsp. in the entire reservoir and the roots did seem to grow more today overall.

I remember in a previous grow of mine the leaves had the same look to them (yellowish edges), and by adding Epsom salts it helped greatly. Anyone have an idea of how much Epsom salts to add to the reservoir?

I am planning on making a homemade trellis once my baby gets larger and able to train onto it. I did try to research indoor pruning on cukes online, however basically got a tutorial on "topping". It was for indoor and outdoor cucumbers, and just allowed for it to develop more cukes overall. Do you have a specific link for pruning tutorials?

As my plant gets larger, I may buy 1 other light... I'm not sure though. Again, this is just for fun and even if it doesn't produce any cukes, it was still a great adventure while it lasted

hey there bella ..... the info on pruning that I saw was in a book .... I will have to look and see if I can scan an image.... its basically a T style of pruning ... and also there is some program for pinching off certain blooms ... to promote .. fruiting .....

I have no idea about the epsonsalt thing .... I have heard of it tho ...

anyway ... have fun .... that is after all what it is all about ... I think hydroponics is a never ending study .... so many plants and so few square feet ...

Well I'm going to take a short break until I post my next pics. I will continue to take them daily and update towards the end of the month. (got a msg from my net company telling me I'm close to my bandwidth for the month, and I definitely don't want to go over if I don't have to )

Everything is still looking great. The 2nd set of leaves have opened beautifully and the 3rd set are just about to open.

The roots are continuing to grow longer and longer. I haven't added any more ferts or Epsom salts yet. I want to see how the next set of leaves adjust.

I felt the temp of my reservoir today. It's a bit warmer then room temp. Any idea if this is too warm? Maybe this is what is causing the yellowish look to my leaves? hmmm.. gotta love all the questions that arise.
Opinions on the temp of the water would be greatly appreciated

Thanks again for everyone interest in my grow journal!

Day 12!

Well my plant is getting larger and larger by the day. I finally figured out what was causing the brown spots on my leaves! Silly bella had sprayed them with water while the lights were on (I have done it to other plants with no problems... apparently cukes are very light sensitive) I only did it twice, so I have forsure stopped... and will only do it while my lights are off.

Also, the larger leaf closest to the front (on the right), my kitty decided to test out the flavor apparently. So I've lost a quarter of a leaf.

Other then those issues, things are still going ok I did add 2tsp. of epsom salts app. 1wk ago. I may add more in the near future.

Sure hope it works out for you. I tried zukes in an aeroponic system once.. the plant was a very beautiful monster, but I never could get the things to
germinate no matter how hard I tried.. the blooms would simply drop upon opening full. The root mass was simply huge.. your plant will require a lot of space and water so be thinking about it.
Will look back for updates, keep the great pics comming!

Day 14

I added another 2 tsp. of Epsom salts today. It doesn't appear the plants are hating it. I'm noticing on the new leaves the yellowish edge is not as apparent, so I'm hoping the salt is taking care of that.

Day 17

Still a little bit of yellowing around the edges, but my baby is still growing strong. I'm thinking it's about time I start planning my trellis.

Redrum said:

Sure hope it works out for you. I tried zukes in an aeroponic system once.. the plant was a very beautiful monster, but I never could get the things to
germinate no matter how hard I tried.. the blooms would simply drop upon opening full. The root mass was simply huge.. your plant will require a lot of space and water so be thinking about it.
Will look back for updates, keep the great pics comming!

Click to expand...

Thanks for the input Redrum. I have been looking more and more online about indoor cucumber growing (there isn't much... go figure ). I have found a site that stated you have to cut off a lot of the blooms in order to force it to produce fruit. Once my baby gets closer to that time, I'll decide what I'm going to try.

Even if it doesn't produce any fruit, I'll still be very happy. This is my first hydroponic attempt and I'm loving it. It's a beautiful plant even if it doesn't flower.

Your growing a cucumber?

lol... yes. Yes I am

Awesome

Day 19

Things are still going great. I'm going to build my trellis this weekend. I'm going to try and make it just out of some twine I have laying around. Should do the trick.

I also included some pics of my cat. He loves sunbathing in the light, and trying to sneak a nibble of pant every now and then

Mr kitty thinks it's catnip.

Ok Bella I need some help and I was wondering if you can help me.

ok I bought a rubber maid contanor, air pump, air rocks and some air hose, not I got it all set up and its running perfect but I don't have any nutes in the water, do I need any nutes in the water even though its just a clone with 3mm roots? and can I use soil nutes for hydro?

BCSKing said:

Ok Bella I need some help and I was wondering if you can help me.

ok I bought a rubber maid contanor, air pump, air rocks and some air hose, not I got it all set up and its running perfect but I don't have any nutes in the water, do I need any nutes in the water even though its just a clone with 3mm roots? and can I use soil nutes for hydro?

Click to expand...

What exactly are you going to be growing??

It is recommended to put nutes in the water, since plain water doesn't have all the needed nutrients for plants to grow.

My grow is more of an experiment. I've never done anything with hydroponics before. Because of this, I did not want to necessarily go out and buy extra nutrients,lighting, etc. If I was more of a serious grower, I would definitely invest in better lighting and nutrients.

I used a small amount of just regular all purpose 10-15-10 liquid fertilizer. It is meant for soil, but it didn't seem to harm the plants at all. I didn't do this until my plant was 5 days old (check out the pics from day 5 to see the size of my plant)

Fertilizers meant for soil usually use Urea/Ammonia as their source of nitrogen. When this is used in soil-less grows it tends to do more harm then good for the plants, as they cannot use the nitrogen effectively. I believe the ammonia can also disturb the PH balance of the water.

If you are taking your grow seriously, and want to most out of it... I would suggest getting a fertilizer meant for hydroponics. This will allow proper nutrients for your plants. Someone at a hydroponic shop should be able to help you.

Hope this helps!