Get Planting .... cool outdoor cucumbers

In the height of summer nothing beats a crisp, succulent slice of cucumber in a salad. Modern outdoor varieties perform more productively in the fickle British climate, with greater tolerance of cooler UK temperatures and enhanced disease resistance, particularly against mildews, than in the past. By selecting those producing smaller, snack-sized fruit on compact plants you'll get a more productive, steady supply of fruit.

Like courgettes and melons, most cucumber varieties produce male and female flowers on the same plant, so will need cross pollinating. Although bees do this, you can help by taking a paintbrush and transferring male pollen to the female flower which has a tiny cucumber behind it.

A few outdoor varieties such as 'La Diva' and 'Picolino' are female only or parthenogenic, producing fruit without pollination, so are definitely worth looking out for.

To get started either sow seeds now directly in the ground, start them off in pots under glass and then plant out, or buy plantlets from online suppliers.

If sowing directly or in pots, position seeds on edge and give them warmth of around 18C (64F). Outdoors place a cloche or black polythene over the soil a week in advance to warm soil up. Cucumbers grown in pots and growing, bags are more readily positioned in a warm, sheltered, sunny spot – conditions cucumbers prefer. They will also need a netted framework or trellis on which to clamber, or if allowed to trail over the ground provide sufficient space for the vines to spread out, and mulch the ground with straw or bark chips to protect fruit from rain splash. Pinch out shoot tips at seven leaves to encourage sideshoots to form and produce more fruit. Feed plants with a liquid nitrogen feed first, then as flowers appear and fruits swell, switch to a high potash tomato feed.