Trimming cucumber vines produces healthier fruit.
Cucumber vines (Cucumus sativus), unlike the bush variety, generate from a single stem and produce multiple shoots requiring constant monitoring to keep wild growth in check. Pruning or trimming cucumber vines is a key factor to growing and maintaining healthy plants. Trim your climbing cucumber plants to remove dead or damaged portions and provide sufficient nutrition for more vigorous fruit production. You can grow cucumbers in all USDA plant hardiness zones.
Trim off all shoots that branch off from the main vine stem using pruning shears. Make the cut at the beginning of the shoot, as close to the main stem as possible. Monitor the plant daily to constrain the vine to the main stem.
Pick off any flowers that form before the plant has at least seven leaves. Although the flower produces the fruit, picking off the early ones will make the plant produce more leaves and roots for a better future harvest.
Prune off all fruit except one per leaf using the shears to cut the fruit away from the vine at the stem of the fruit. The plant will produce fruit from the bottom, causing fewer mature fruits to grow at the top.
Grab the fruit at the stem and break it off the vine when it has matured. It is important to pick the fruit from the bottom as the plant will give energy to the lowest portion remaining, inhibiting growth of the higher part of the plant.
Dunn, Willa. "How to Trim Cucumber Vines." Home Guides | SF Gate, http://homeguides.sfgate.com/trim-cucumber-vines-24091.html. Accessed 19 April 2019.