I am always not sure whether to remove the side shoots of my cucumber plant. This one below have a shoot growing out but no fruit. Should I remove it or just leave it to grow and produce fruits later? This one have a fruit and shoot growing out so should I remove the shoot? I checked with google and they said to remove it. Their plants have a fruit at every leaves but mine do not. Mine is like, so far, only 2 fruits on the lower leaves and have not seen any yet at the upper leaves. In view of this situation it is very tempting for me to allow the shoots to grow and maybe I can get more fruits. Any suggestion?
In the course of a cue plants life, I remove all except two, sometimes one if it is a particularly weak plant.
I did this as an experiment last year KK. I pruned some plants and left some plants. . I had mixed results. I definitely had more fruit on the vines that I allowed to just do thier thing, but they were also harder to see. They did sprawl though, and in the end I had prune them aggresively around the bottoms anyhow because I have a wee greenhouse and they were taking over. I'm certain the plant did not like such an insult at that stage of it's growth. The plants that sprawled were also not as healthy because they were laying on the soil sometimes. I did get fruit consistently on the ones that I removed the shoots on, but not as many. Most of mine were pickling cukes, with one Straight 8 slicing cuke. My plan this growing season is to prune sparingly. I hope to control the sprawl and keep up to eveyone being trained to climb, but still get as much fruit as possible. My little season is so short that it is a balance to get as much fruit as possibe in a short time, while still having a managable plant. I think it could depend also on how much space you have for the plant, and how much fruit you are hoping for. It certainly is lovely to see your beautiful plant! The cukes look delicious!
Thanks Sjoerd, I'll remove all from weak plants. Thank you Melody. I always remove those close to the ground so none of the vines are crawling around on the ground. I think I have lots of space and I want lots of fruits ... hehe!!! being a little greedy. I'll bear in mind what you said. OK this is what I have decided, for the shoots that grow with a fruit - second photo - I will remove it completely. For the shoots without a fruit - first photo - if it produce fruit on the first leaf of the shoot, I'll cut the shoot 2 leaves away from the fruit to allow the fruit to grow to maturity. Now to wait and see
