How to save cucumbers if it rains all the time - effective fertilizers and methods

Cucumbers

Cucumbers prefer a humid and warm environment, but when it rains nonstop for days and the temperature drops, these conditions become dangerous. Fruit buds fail to form, leaves turn yellow prematurely and fall off, and the plant's roots become susceptible to fungal diseases. Gardeners can't change the weather, but saving the cucumber harvest is their responsibility, and they're successfully managing it.

Plant protection during periods of prolonged rainfall

You need to prepare for prolonged rains, map out a plan, and stock up on some supplies to protect your crops during inclement weather. Moisture-loving plants like cabbage even appreciate the endless flow of water, but cucumbers can succumb and die from cold or disease. They need to be protected, insulated, fertilized, and the risk of disease eliminated.

How to insulate

The first thing you need to do is keep your cucumber plants as warm as possible. There are several options:

Make additional drainage around the beds so that water flows away and does not stagnate on the surface.
The easiest way is to install arches and cover the plantings with film.
Mulch the beds with a thick layer of straw, dried grass, or wood shavings, but before doing this, be sure to drain or dry the surface of the soil, diverting water to the side.
Water even gets into greenhouses due to underground water flow, significantly increasing air humidity. It's essential to ventilate greenhouses more frequently, preventing drafts.

In regions where heavy and prolonged rainfall is common, gardeners construct special insulated cucumber beds: raised, sunken, or at ground level. The basic principle for constructing such beds is the use of a thick layer of rotted manure, compost, and garden waste. All these materials are poured to a depth of up to 50 cm onto the future beds and compacted well, followed by a 15-20 cm layer of garden soil.

The decomposition of waste generates heat, essential for cucumbers. Furthermore, such structures allow water to drain easily, preventing it from accumulating at the plant's roots. They require no special root feeding during the growing season. Completed beds can last up to 3-4 years, after which the rotted and decomposed components should be replaced.

Attention!

If other materials are unavailable, mown grass can be used as insulation, but such a bed will only be useful for 1-2 seasons. Plant debris from diseased plants should not be added to the waste; it must be disposed of.

What to feed

Healthy and robust plants are more resilient to all natural disasters, but they are still vulnerable to prolonged periods of precipitation. Water quickly leaches all nutrients from the soil, causing cucumbers to become depleted and weaken. If the rain continues unabated, it's necessary to fertilize the seedlings more frequently than usual, every 2-3 days. Naturally, such frequent treatments require a significant amount of mineral fertilizer, and they are washed away more quickly, so gardeners use the most inexpensive and readily available options:

Iodine solution is an antiseptic that protects cucumbers from late blight and gray mold; the microelements it contains strengthen the plant's immunity and restore its energy balance;
Soda-soap solutions are suitable for foliar treatment of cucumber leaves and shoots, protecting them from fungal diseases;
Cow and poultry manure extracts—these fertilizer solutions require little effort: add 0.5 kg and 0.1 kg of each component to a bucket of water, let sit for several hours, and then filter. Water or spray the cucumbers 1-2 times a week;
Ash and ash infusions act as potassium fertilizers. The powder is scattered on the soil surface in a thin layer, and the infusions are applied to the upper parts of the plant: leaves, shoots, and ovaries.

During the rainy season, weak plants begin to show signs of disease, the development of which must be immediately prevented.

First aid for illness

Sometimes it's impossible to quickly implement protective measures in cucumber beds before heavy rainfall. Subsequently, the first symptoms of disease may appear on cucumber leaves and shoots. The diseases can vary, and first aid should be administered accordingly (see table).

Possible diseases after heavy rains	Symptoms	Treatment
Powdery mildew	Small white spots appear on the leaves, the fungus grows, covers the entire leaf blade, the plant dries up and dies	Remove affected leaves and treat the entire cucumber bed with chemicals such as Topaz, HOM, colloidal sulfur, mullein, or sour milk. Repeat treatments every 7-10 days.
Peronosporosis	Symptoms are similar to powdery mildew.	Stop fertilizing and watering. Spray cucumbers once a week with solutions of polycarbacin or Bordeaux mixture.
Sclerotinia (white rot)	Slippery white clots appear on the plants, which darken over time, shoots and ovaries become soft and rot.	Remove infected plant parts and treat cut areas with lime or charcoal. Feed cucumbers with a solution of 10 liters of water + 10 g of urea + 1 g of zinc sulfate + 1 g of copper sulfate.
Gray rot	A fuzzy, grey lump appears at the base of the receptacle.	Stop watering cucumbers for 2-3 days, remove all affected leaves and shoots, spray the plantings with Trichodermin, Fitosporin or HOM
Root rot	The stems and root collar become thinner, the roots turn brown, dry out and die.	Remove all diseased plants from the garden bed. As a preventative measure, remove 10 cm of soil from healthy roots, sprinkle the resulting holes with chalk or ash, leave for 2-3 hours to air out, and then fill the holes with soil.
Anthracosis	Many yellow-brown spots appear on the leaves, and the cucumbers become ulcerated.	Spray the plantings with Bordeaux mixture or copper sulfate, sprinkle charcoal or lime on the soil surface
Yellowing of leaves	Symptoms are visible - yellow leaves	Feed cucumbers with an ash solution or an infusion of onion peels

The diseases listed in the table can arise and develop as a result of a sharp drop in air temperature and excessive soil moisture. Gardeners, warned by weather forecasters of the approaching prolonged rains, try to prevent complications in their cucumber beds by carrying out preventative treatments in advance. They take measures to protect cucumbers from the cold by insulating the beds with available materials.

Attention!

Chemicals and fertilizers are sold in packages with instructions included. Follow the instructions, especially regarding dosing. Avoid using solutions in concentrations higher than the manufacturer's recommendations.

Additional protective measures

Forward-looking gardeners, knowing that the rainy season is approaching, take the following protective measures:

Large lower leaves on cucumber vines are torn off to prevent the appearance of yellow spots and their further spread throughout the plant.
Remove excess lateral shoots, pinch off the tops of the remaining vines, and thin out dense bushes.
After the rainy season ends, you need to loosen the soil in the beds so that the moisture evaporates faster.
At the same time, spray the cucumbers with a soda solution: 10 liters of water + 30 g of soda + 20 g of laundry soap.
Greenhouses are ventilated to normalize air humidity.

Conclusion

Our crops depend entirely on us, but even humans have no control over the weather. Caring gardeners are not prone to despair. They take every possible measure to save their harvest. Growing cucumbers in insulated greenhouses is much easier, but it's not always possible to purchase and equip such facilities. In this case, ingenuity and the good advice of experienced gardeners come to the rescue.

Helpful tips from gardeners

Nikita, 37 years old, Saransk

Rain is common here, and summers can be cool and last for weeks, so I plant cucumbers in barrels. I collect used containers wherever I can. Not every container is suitable; iron and plastic barrels can't be used; they get too hot. I fill half the barrel with gravel or broken brick, and the other half with mature compost. It works perfectly: rainwater doesn't stagnate around the roots, and the compost acts as fertilizer and a warming agent.

Anna, 43 years old, Voronezh

My husband built raised beds about 30 cm high for cucumbers. In the spring, we lay pruned tree branches, kitchen scraps, and grass clippings on the bottom to keep them warm. For rain protection, it's easy to build a temporary shelter out of whatever materials you have: plastic, tarpaulin, or scraps of linoleum. To prevent disease, I spray the cucumbers with a baking soda solution and sprinkle ash on the soil.

Marina, 39 years old, Novokuznetsk

During rainy periods that last for several days, I try to insulate the beds as best I can. Straw, laid at an angle on supports, works well; rainwater runs off it without spilling onto the beds. I also mulch the soil with straw and compact it lightly with a rake. After two or three days of continuous rain, I feed the cucumbers with a complex fertilizer, either by spraying the leaves or watering the roots.