Vegetable · Cucurbitaceae
When to plant cucumbers
Fast, greedy and completely intolerant of cold. Direct sowing into warm soil often overtakes an earlier transplant.
Start seed indoors
3 weeks before
Counted from your last spring frost.
Plant out
2 weeks after
Counted from your last spring frost.
Sow direct
2 weeks after
Counted from your last spring frost.
Those weeks become real dates once you name a place.
Timing, in frost-relative terms
Seed packets rarely give calendar dates, because a date that suits one latitude is wrong at another. They give offsets from the last spring frost instead, and those offsets are what make cucumbers plantable anywhere.
- Start seed indoors 3 weeks before the last frost.
- Plant out 2 weeks after the last frost.
- Sow direct 2 weeks after the last frost.
- Expect 50–70 days to maturity, counted from sowing.
- Sow again every 21 days for a continuous supply.
Getting the timing right
Only three weeks indoors: cucumbers hate root disturbance, so sow into modules or pots you can plant whole. A second sowing three weeks after the first extends picking by a month.
Frost tolerance
Cold soil rots cucumber seed before it germinates. If soil is below 18C, wait - the seed is cheaper than the fortnight you would lose.
Classified as tender, with damage expected below 0°C (32°F)32°F (0°C).