Fruit curvature is not a whim of nature or a variety characteristic, but a serious agrotechnical disorder. The cucumber in the bed is a real sprinter: it takes only a few days from the flower to the ready cucumber. If the plant experiences stress at that time, the fruit instantly deforms.
Fortunately, the situation can be corrected. It is enough to learn to correctly “read” the shape of the cucumber to understand what care it lacks.
Shape like a bulb: potassium deficiency
If cucumbers begin to narrow near the stem and swell at the end, turning into a bulb or pear-shaped vegetable, the plant is sounding the alarm due to severe potassium deficiency. Potassium is responsible for proper moisture distribution and fruit growth. Cucumber branches grow at a cosmic speed, absorbing all the juices from the soil, and if the soil is depleted, the fruits simply cannot develop evenly.
Shape like a carrot: nitrogen deficiency
The completely opposite picture is when the cucumber, on the contrary, swells near the tail, and its tip remains narrow, pale, and often curls. Such a carrot shape unequivocally indicates a severe nitrogen deficiency.
At the end of June and the beginning of July, many novice gardeners fear nitrates so much that they completely exclude nitrogen from the cucumber diet, making a fatal mistake. Cucumber vines need nitrogen until the end of the season because they must constantly grow new leaves to replace the aging ones.
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Hourglass or curled horn: temperature shock
If the fruits narrow right in the middle, resembling an hourglass figure, or simply curl into a hard ram’s horn, the issue is not nutrition at all. This is a classic consequence of temperature shock or watering with icy water from a well.
Cucumbers hate contrasts: when the scorching heat of July prevails during the day, and the temperature suddenly drops at night, or when soil heated by the sun is poured with cold water, the vessels in the ovary are pinched, and the fruit grows crooked.
Cucumbers should be watered exclusively with warm water warmed in barrels in the sun and only in the morning or evening. Mulching is also necessary – a gentle protection of the roots from overheating and drying out.
Untimely harvest
In July, cucumbers should be picked from the branches every two days, not allowing them to overgrow. When at least one large overgrown yellow cucumber hangs on the bush, the plant will start to give all its strength to it, and all new ovaries around will definitely grow crooked, small, and ugly.
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