https://jeltsch.org/en/tags/hybrid/Recent content in Hybrid on Michael’s DomainHugoen-usCopyright © 2002 - 2026 Michael Jeltsch.Fri, 24 Jul 2026 00:18:18 +0300https://jeltsch.org/en/cucumbers/Sat, 03 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000https://jeltsch.org/en/cucumbers/<p>Pandemic + staycation = balcony gardening. While our tomatoes are all still green, the cucumber harvest has started about 2 weeks ago. So far, we have harvested 50 cucumbers, 25 of them today. There is at least the same amount still hanging on the plants. Last year, the cucumbers got infested early in the season with spider mites and we harvested only very few. The only thing I did differently from last year is that I included fertilizer with every watering. I tried two different biological fertilizers, but they did not fly for two reasons: the nettle-based (fermented) fertilizer was so stinky that we could not use the balcony for three days after I had applied it. The second fertilizer I tried was worm tea, a byproduct of our <a href="https://www.plastia.eu/en/worm-farm-urbalive?lng_code=en&amp;mena=EUR" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">worm farm&nbsp; <svg class="svg-inline--fa fas fa-up-right-from-square fa-2xs" fill="currentColor" aria-hidden="true" role="img" viewBox="0 0 512 512" overflow="visible"><use href="#fas-up-right-from-square"></use></svg></a> . It is essentially odor-neutral, but our worm farm is too small to produce enough fertilizer for the cucumbers and tomatoes, which both have high nutrient demands. So I used essentially only the <a href="https://www.biolan.fi/tuotteet/biolan-kastelulannoite.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Biolan liquid fertilizer&nbsp; <svg class="svg-inline--fa fas fa-up-right-from-square fa-2xs" fill="currentColor" aria-hidden="true" role="img" viewBox="0 0 512 512" overflow="visible"><use href="#fas-up-right-from-square"></use></svg></a> and I am happy with it. It contains apart from the usual NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) also a lot of microminerals.</p>