Cucumbers Above The Arctic Circle

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LED Grow Lights Are A Wonderful Thing
Hello there gardeners and green thumbs! I have quite the unique challenge on my hands and I must admit I could use some of your knowledge to help these plants thrive. The ground this far up in Nunavut, Canada is lichen and rock. Some grass, a few flowers, and moss. That is, for a brief 3-4 months. This means our only option is to grow indoors. Plants are a somewhat rare commodity in the stores here. And, so far we've only managed to find two types of succulents and kit to grow cucumbers. I have to be honest. It's been 5 months since I've seen the green of plants and I was excited to find these plants in the store so I immediately bought both types of succulents and the cucumber kit. When I got home I immediately started the cucumbers in their dish and placed it on top of our miracle grow aero pod herb kit. (which I need to buy a replacement kit for....)
The kit contained a lump of coconut fiber soil and 6 cucumber seeds. That's it. Hindsight being 2020 (too early for that joke?) I should have started only 2 or 3 plants to begin with. Anyway, here is their progression so far.
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6 was New Year's Eve so you will have to forgive me. I forgot to take a photo.
Day 7
Happy New Year!
And more importantly, Happy New Decade!
As I mentioned, there are going to be some problems we face with these Cucumber plants. So I will start off by saying a Long English Cucumber where I live is $5 CAD. This kit was $12. We don't pay for water, just electricity. So if we harvest, let's say 4-5 cucumbers we're in the green! pun, totally intended
These problems will be moderately easy to tackle. We've grown cucumbers outdoors in buckets before, but with these, we intend on growing them individually in pails within our second bathroom since we never use it. We will get some sort of net or lattice that stretches from the shower rod to the backside of the tub to allow the cucumbers to vine. So that won't be a problem, I don't think. Fertilization also won't be an issue for us.
I don't think our lighting is sufficient, we have roughly 100 watts of LED lights that you find on amazon. I think we need more white light, but I'm not certain, some input on growing veggies indoors would be wonderful. And we will have to manually pollinate the plants. We have never had to do that before so if you know a good tutorial on how to do it I would love to see it.
I may have missed a few more problems we will have to tackle. If you know of any feel free to let me know. I'm here to learn. I will continue to monitor the progress of these plants via Steemit on a monthly basis. Please follow me if you wish to see if cucumbers can grow north of 60.
I do not have any affiliate links in my blog so I will leave you with a picture of one of my succulents that's almost ready to flower!





I remember having a huge garden when I was growing up. Grandparents canned everything (they lived through the Great Depression) so it was, of course, a habit to grow things. Now... many years later, the idea of going to the store for vegetables still makes me chuckle... kind of like buying bottled water...
!giphy Garden
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Congratulations @lacking!
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There are a lot of different light options, to many I think. A simple inexpensive full spectrum light might help. Along with light you have to remember that some plants like dark also,
Thank you for your reply. I will have the lights on timers to make sure they get a bit of darkness, but more importantly so I can't forget to turn them on. lol
Hi lacking,
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@mckenziegary has some experience at indoor gardening and might have some insight for you! Hopefully, tagging him here will get his attention! He has a show in PALnet discord on Sunday afternoons and has been talking about indoor gardening the past few months!
Awesome! Thanks for the info. I hang around in that discord so I'll make sure to pop by around his time on the radio and pickle his radish then.
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I am sure that all problems will be solved and there will be a good harvest. As you say, a new year and a new decade! Thank you for making this beautiful gardening post. A big hello @lacking
Thank you for taking the time to read it. I'm looking forward to bragging to our friends about our fresh veggies in a few months lol.
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This is quite a challenge!