GREENHOUSE CUCUMBERS 



91 



sterilized. This sterilizing is considered by most growers to 

 be beneficial. In fact, at our place it was found that steam- 

 ing improved the crop noticeably. Several years through the 

 early part of our garden operations we did not sterilize our 

 soils. We had very good success with lettuce and tomatoes on 

 soil which was not sterilized. But one year we made an ex- 

 periment and we found that the cucumbers grown in the 

 sterilized soil showed up much better than those grown on 

 the unsterilized soil. So we sterilize every year now. 



Through the winter season, after each crop of lettuce, 

 manure and commercial fertilizer should be applied. This 

 will not only benefit the lettuce, but will store up in the soil 

 an abundance of plant food for the spring crop of cucumbers. 

 Instead of putting into the soil immense quantities of manure 

 just previous to planting the cucumbers, I believe it should 

 be incorporated in the soil throughout the winter season, so 

 that it will have a chance to become more readily soluble for 

 the spring crop of cucumbers. Ground limestone, at the rate 

 of two tons per acre, is applied each year, preferably in the 

 summer. 



Intercropping. 



The time of bedding the plants depends on the individual 

 grower. Lettuce is, of course, intercropped with the cucum- 

 bers, and if one wishes to extend the lettuce season to June 

 first, the first plants should be bedded about the middle of 

 March. To explain, if one's lettuce crop is in perfect rota- 

 tion, he will begin to bed cucumbers March fifteen and will 

 complete the planting by the last of April. Then the grower 

 can begin to cut the lettuce that has been planted with the 

 cucumbers, and this crop will last until the first of June. Of 

 course, these dates cannot be exact, but may be used as a 

 basis for planning the crop. 



Many growers make the mistake of crowding the lettuce 

 too closely about the cucumbers, and some give too much 

 room. Lettuce is generally given about fifty square inches 

 of space to the plant. Some plant as close as six by six, 

 which is thirty-six inches; some eight by eig'ht, which is 

 sixty-four; but fifty seems to be about the medium. If the 

 lettuce is planted any closer than this, it will play the part 



