Cucumber
Cucumis sativus · Gourd family
Plant portrait
Flexible stems with tendrils, broad leaves and yellow flowers precede the cucumbers. Fruit length and smooth or prickly skin vary with the variety.
Harvested part
The fruits, usually harvested before the seeds mature.
What to watch for
Look for tendrils, flowers and then small fruits that lengthen. Compare shape, firmness and colour with what is expected for your variety rather than with the model’s size.
Growth stages of the cucumber
Plotilo illustrates the cucumber in 7 stages in 3D: seed, small sprout, young plant, growing, flowering, developing fruit and harvest. The models show typical shapes; they do not predict how long growth takes.
- Seed
Starting from a seed. It is shown on the surface to make it visible in this illustration.
- Small sprout
A short first stem and its first small leaves emerge.
- Young plant
The young plant carries more leaves and starts to take its own shape.
- Growing
Leaves and stems develop. Their shape depends on the species.
- Flowering
Flowers are shown before fruit begins to form.
- Developing fruit
Fruit begins to develop on the plant.
- Harvest
An illustration of the harvested part. Roots are made visible for clarity; this image does not confirm actual maturity.
Same botanical family
Same botanical family as the cucumber (the gourd family): the courgette, the pumpkin, the squash, the bottle gourd, the melon and the watermelon. Gardeners usually avoid growing the same family in the same spot several years in a row: that is the idea behind crop rotation.