How We Plant Pickles

Pickles are small cucumbers and they love hot weather, so it is best to start them indoors and transplant them to the outdoor garden when all danger of frost has ended and the soil is warm. Vine crops, such as cucumbers, don’t like to have their root systems disturbed, so we grow them in peat pots in early May and transplant them in early June. We save the pickles by canning them (as baby dills), so we grow a ‘pickling’ variety. We plant 3 to 4 pickles in a small circle and train them to climb up a trellis next to the plants.

Most gardeners tend to plant too many salad-type cucumber plants. Remember that one well-tended plant can produce 30 to 40 pounds of cucumbers, so go easy here if you want only the larger, salad size cucumbers.

To plant, cut a hole in the plastic, dig out a good size hole, add some fertilizer to the hole and mix with surrounding dirt, trim top of peat pot and place into hole. Cover with soil and water good.