Technically 10 above. Tiny just sprouted on right I will most likely remove, those seeds just germinated. So question is basically for 8. 10 probably seems obsured lol

The plants will grow to fill the space and no more. Each plant won't grow as large as a single isolated plant would but, taken together, pairs of plants will produce as would one. Think of them as stems on one plant. Would you prune stems off a cucumber plant? If so, you'd better pull some of them. If not, then just let them grow. I guess what I'm saying is that, in this situation, productivity is going to scale as the amount of soil area, and the nutrients available in that area, and not as much on the number of plants.

Too many cucumber plants. That kind of space is only enough for one(1) cucumber plant.

One? It's like a 10 foot long planter box that's 3 feet deep.

Thanks daninthedirt, what you said makes sense

Ultimately the choice is yours. But you know from past experience what 5-6 plants will do in that space so why would you push it so much more and add more stress and all the problems that can cause? In other words, what do you stand to gain from such crowding vs. what do you stand to lose?

Dave

Agree with Dave. An increase in plants means more water/fertilizer will be needed as the roots compete and the vines will be competing for light. Both of which reduces the yield per plant. And the increase of vines increases the likelihood of disease. If x-amount of plants filled the space last year and did well, why would you increase the amount of plants and mess up what works?

Rodney

Thanks for help all. I started by clipping down the tiny last couple seedlings that sprouted on right, will monitor from here on out as they grow. I just got excited from previous success and went a bit overboard to start this season

Yes, planting more plants WILL require more nutrients in order for each plant to grow optimally. But that's not what we're taking about here. We're talking about filling a space, and if you do so with plants that are not growing optimally, the number of plants largely cancels out that non-optimality in terms of total production. The yield per plant will certainly be lower, but there are more plants.

Bottom line is that I'm guessing the total productivity won't depend much on what you do.

Why would you increase the amount of plants? Well, maybe just to see if it makes a difference. There is information to be gained, and I suspect not a lot to lose, if the metric is total productivity.

There are many gardeners who simply can't get past the idea that each and every plant has to grow optimally.

"and if you do so with plants that are not growing optimally, the number of plants largely cancels out that non-optimality in terms of total production. The yield per plant will certainly be lower, but there are more plants."

Don't fully agree with that Dan. It not only cancels it out but can substantially reduce the production.

So the obvious question is why would anyone choose to intentionally provide non-optimal conditions when providing optimal is so easy? Given the photo the conditions provided appear to be less than optimal to begin with. Using the fence boards, the red fence spacing, and the plants for scale the containercannot possibly be 10 feet long and it is still a container. Plus it is fenced in and shaded, only 18-24" height to climb, etc. - so why make them worse by over-crowding?

Dave