Cucumbers 2023

General Gardening
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Cucumbers this year were my “sort of a disaster” crop this year. Tomatoes were terrible last year, but great this year.

I grew three varieties this year that I started myself from seed. The past few years I’d gotten starts of “Super Slicing” or something from the Amish nursery. Lemon Cucumbers (the lemon shaped heirloom), Spring Burpless (Ferry-Morse seeds, supposedly like those long “English” cucumbers from the grocery store…it very much isn’t) and Armenian (Burpee seeds, supposed to be the very long, thin, light green cucumbers.

I grew them up a trellis I made from two 7’ U-posts with twine running back and forth every 4-6" which for getting the plants off the ground worked well enough.

Lemon cucumbers I’d heard people say were mostly a novelty “try growing them once” sort of crop. I’d tend to agree with that. They’re spiny as shit compared to any other cucumber I’ve ever handled. And after I pulled out the two other varieties because those plants died back…they stopped producing fruit? There were a crapload of bees and probably a hundred flowers and like three dozen aborted tiny Lemon cucumbers. Are they actually self-fertile? Did the plant pick up a disease or something that would keep it growing, but prevent fruit set? It’s been hot (like 90F), but not super crazy, and I’ve been watering.

Spring Burpless (Ferry-Morse seeds) after seeing the results I looked at the reviews on the two big box stores and found other people had the same results going back five years. The package and other websites apparently selling the same variety show the long, dark green, slightly ribbed, thin skinned “English” cucumbers like you’d find at the store. The cucumbers the plant grows look like large pickling cucumbers. Half of those were disgustingly bitter. Which might have been from heat stress? The ones that tasted OK had HUGE seeds even when they weren’t picked super late. I don’t mind this that much, but a half-inedible crop, that wasn’t what I thought I was buying, makes it a dud.

Armenian cucumber (Burpee seeds) I think I only got two cucumbers from the two plants, they were OK, but had kind of thick skin. They were also not particularly long, and the skin was mostly dark green striated. So not really what I was expecting. Edible in the limited quantities I got, at least.

Not liking the other two I started more Armenian ones. The first batch either got eaten or something and didn’t come up after a week, so I started some indoors and massively overplanted outside. Those are coming up now, so hopefully I can still get a super late harvest before frost.

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2

My European cucumbers started with nice grow, in no time filling 12X7 vertical curtain. But they hesitated to produce a single cucumber. I think I figured out what was the problem. With huge amount of rain we are getting normal fertilization schedule doesn’t work. I think the plants have enough time to grab Nitrogen before it was washed away but they didn’t have enough time to get K and P. I switched to 3-4-4 and started to fertilize every week. And they exploded. I already have 30 qt canned and started to give them away to the neighbors. Just today I have to give away half 5-gallon bucket of cucumbers. I have 5 roots, I think I will continue fertilize just one of them, so we have cucumbers for the table, and the rest could decline on their own.

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Had a problem with squash lady beetle larva on my cucumbers. Sprayed a few times with Safer soap spray to kill them. Growing Chompers and Burpee II Hybrid and plants are still producing.

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This year I discovered a variety of Japanese cucumber that is excellent, my husband said it tastes like English cucumber. I used to like growing Armenian cucumber because they are large, but now I think they are tough. Once I’m done with the seeds I have I won’t be buying anymore.
I like my Diva and Tendersweet, small and crunchy.
I didn’t get a chance to sow any pickling cucumber for pickling, frankly that’s the only regret.

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Tokiwa is a decent slicing cucumber, Diva is another good slicer, Russian Pickling is a very good pickling cucumber. I have grown about 50 or 60 varieties over the years. Roughly 1/5 are good enough to grow again. Bedfordshire Prize is a decent english variety. Japanese Climbing is a highly productive slicer. Sandhill Preservation has several of these.

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I grow what is called the “Suyo Long” cucumber on the packet. It looks just like your Suyo “Brocade” and a variety that was called “Japanese Long Pickling” that I grew years ago and is no longer available from the original source. I suspect that they are just different names for the same variety.

I agree that it is an excellent variety and note that it is described as a pickling cucumber, although I don’t make pickles.

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I planted pickling cucumbers and cornichons three times this year. Cut worms got them every time, even after spraying with a cut worm killer. Just horrible. I will try again next year!

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It’s probably the same. Rareseeds has Suyu Long and cheaper too. I like the part no bitter because I did grow one variety of Japanese cucumber that was bitter, so I shied away from them until now.

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I only got a few fruit and they were short or round. What causes that? It has rained a lot so they got plenty of water.

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Shape is almost entirely genetic. Some are short and round. Others are long and slim. A few are long and huge.

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I got the same spiny cucumbers. 2 plants in one pot. Yeah, I kind of pause when eating them because of the texture. It has to be semi peeled for me to eat them. Anyway, one of the plant die and the other one still live. I got a couple of cucumbers from it.