Cucumber
Pepino · Concombre
🧩 Role in the garden
- Family
- Cucurbitaceae
- Height
- medium (40–100 cm)
- Shape
- climbing
- Roots
- medium depth
- Sun
- full sun
- Season
- warm season
- Grows in
- ☀ summer beds (warm season)
- Feeds
- heavy feeder
Jobs in the bed
- Needs a supportClimbs. Give it a trellis or a tall neighbour such as corn or sunflower.
Rotation
Do not return Cucurbitaceae to the same spot for 3–4 years. Same family:
✓ Good neighbours
☀❄ Grows in a different season: not at the same time in the same bed.
✗ Keep apart
None listed.
✿ Helpful flowers & herbs
- ✿ NasturtiumTrap crop — draws aphids & caterpillars off the crop; trailing ground cover; edible Plant slightly away from the main crop so pests move to it, not onto the crop
- ✿ BoragePowerful bee/pollinator magnet; pollinator flowers have been shown to raise strawberry yield & quality Large plant, self-seeds freely
- ✿ SunflowerLiving support for climbers; attracts pollinators & seed-eating birds Its residues are allelopathic (a legume sown after sunflower yielded less): clear the stalks before resowing; tall and thirsty, it competes with low neighbours
- ✿ ZinniaStrong pollinator magnet; long flowering season
- ✿ PhaceliaOne of the best bee & hoverfly attractants; also a green manure
- ✿ DillAttracts ladybugs, parasitic wasps & hoverflies (aphid predators) A minor host of the carrot fly: keep it away from carrots
- ✿ ChamomileAttracts hoverflies & parasitic wasps