Cucumbers revisited

One of the first vegetable seeds we sowed in Matt's Patch were cucumbers. Now, I've never had much luck with growing cucumbers. The last time I tried I think we got one small cucumber before the plants decided to go to the big allotment in the sky.

This year I managed to get three seedlings growing and since I planted them in a growbag two have died. My luck with cucumbers continues.

So, with my enthusiasm still intact, I decided to get some more seeds on the go quickly. Yesterday I looked through all the different types of cucumber in the local seed shop. I've decided to go for an all female variety called Aurelia F1. They should be less trouble as one does not need to keep picking off the male flowers which is what I'll have to do with my remaining plant from the previous effort (Telegraph). I felt this new packet was quite expensive at £2 for 4 seeds, but then again, cucumbers are about a pound each in the supermarkets.

Reading the back it seems like they're quite demanding with regards to temperature, at least to start with. So to give them every chance I made a little propagator from a plastic strawberry punnet which I recovered from the recycling bin - better to reuse than recycle! I taped up most of the air holes on the top, leaving two open for a little ventilation. It's now sitting on the window sill in the conservatory. Please work!

Following on from my experiment where I germinated French beans in damp kitchen roll, I planted the sprouting beans in compost mixed with a little sand. This is what I was greeted with this morning - loads of beans all rising up out of the earth. I've counted over 20 which is a much better success rate. This is definitely the way to go!