The plants are in a container in a place where they get watered every night. Once the weather gets warm it will be ok, but that is proving to take a lot longer than usual. To provide some background, I have 4 cucumbers crowded in about 15 gallons, the idea is that cucumbers do not produce in the arid heat of my area unless you crowd them to provide full shade for the roots and good dispersal of heat between 4 instead of the usual 2 plants. It is just a theory to get a bit more production in heat, but it requires you to prune them. I am gardening in an apartment complex and I do not want them to get bushy in the first place, 3 of the 4 have two stocks, so even if I keep them to single stems there are 7 to trellis in a small space. By growing each with a dedicated string and keeping them single stems I can keep them well aerated and provide full shade. If you watch the video it really looks like she is plucking the small growth points out, and then she explains to use a finger nail later on a larger one. I was just wondering about that, mostly. Thanks Phil Here is a link that might be useful: Video I watched

Susan2010- I have had mixed opinions. From what I heard, removing the first few buds is supposed to put the plant's energy back into growing the root system/branches/vines, so that it will eventually double your crop. Since there becomes more space on more greenery, you get more blooms and stronger support. Then, the suckers "suck" the energy from the fruit once they start to produce, supposidly. I have also been told though, that if you do it incorrectly or at the wrong time, you will just be removing half your crop! So thats my delema since I dont know the correct way :) sjkly- yes, I am in shock how quick! Especially compared to my other plants. Your right..I dont think I have seen any females, so I guess I wouldn't be losing any real fruit lol. I heard males make the fruit thick and bitter tho- anyone know if this is true? seems odd. donnabaskets- thanks, I hope I am doing everything :) I do have somewhat of a home made (kinda ghetto) trellis. I raised the bucket onto a chair so it could run downward instead of up. I had some old fencing I've propped up so it has some support under the vines on it's way down.

"I heard that there are seedless varieties with mostly female flowers that fruit on its own (don't really understand how that works...) but i am not sure if that's the case with this one." You are referring to parthenocarpic varieties. They don't need pollinated to set fruit. I don't think the one you are growing is parthenocarpic though. And taking off the female flowers won't do much of anything. They will fall off on their own if they aren't pollinated. Rodney

I have 10 rootmaker pots that are 7 gallon and 6 air root pruning pots that are 5 gallon. Maybe I will use a similar size standard nursery pot and convert it and do some side by side testing this year with the same tomato plant in 3 of them and basil in 3 of them to see if I notice the differences in growth and root structure. I'm not going to experiment on my trees :) I do have 3 of my small citrus in the 7 gallon rootmaker pots I just transplanted them into those last week.