Plant cucumber in rows 3-6 feet apart. Cultivars Cucumber cultivars are grouped into slicing and pickling types. Pickling cucmbers are good for fresh use as well as for making pickles. Cucumbers are classified into two types of flowering habit. The cultivars with the monecious flowering habit have male and female flowers on the same plant.
Male flowers develop first and female flowers develop further along the vine.
Many of the newer cultivars have a gynecious flowering habit, which means that most of the flowers on the plant will be female. To ensure adequate pollination, the seed companies put some seed of a pollinator cultivar in the seed packet. Advantages of the gynecious cultivars are earlier harvest and higher yield. If the garden is small, there are some cultivars that are bush type rather than the standard vining type. Some cultivars of slicing cucumbers are burpless.