Its been a banner year despite of the heat

[Jared77]

for my cucumbers. I'm about sick of making pickles!!! I've fed over dozen to our neighbors chickens and rabbits and I've already got over 2 dozen quarts of pickles made and I don't even want to guess how many pints of bread and butters we've made. We've got dills, garlic dills and hot garlic dills plus our bread and butters.

Oh and for those keeping score at home the Gherkin experiment was a flop. They are a hybrid so you have to have male and female plants. Well when you plant 8 hills of gherkins and end up replanting a total of 6 hills some which were hit 2x I ended up with a bunch of male flowers and very few female plants to produce. Needless to say I gotta get a fence if I'm going to do this again. That or something to cage them till I can get them on a trellis and then cull the extra male plants. I've gotten a few but not nearly enough to make it worth while for this year. There's always next year so we'll see.

 

[lesa]

I can't believe how many cukes I have had, either. I am not making pickles this year (since I still have many jars, from last year.) The chickens are enjoying the extras. I had a bunch of cucumber beetles, so I fully expected the plants to die (like they usually do). All the plants are still looking healthy! Mother nature loves to surprise! Enjoy your cukes! Sorry about the gherkins- that would have been fun. Happy Gardening!

 

[so lucky]

My cukes and tomatoes at one end of the garden are doing great. Lots to can. At the other end, not so well. Don't know what's up with that. The poorly side gets about 6 hours of sun. You'd think they would appreciate a little shade since the summer has been so hot and dry. Oh well. I'm not cutting down that big elm tree!

 

[digitS']

for my cucumbers. I'm about sick of making pickles!!! . . .

I hope success won't ruin things for you, Jared!

I sure enjoy pickles but, I guess, the making will have to stay an appreciated other people's skill for me. Oh, maybe I can try again sometime in the future - when the gardens are a little smaller (in my retirement ). Of course, by then a cucumber may be too dear to risk to my adventures/misadventures in food preserving .

Cukes from my own garden have just reached the moment when I can enjoy one in my commute home from the digs . I don't grow picklers so, I don't know about this one: Little Leaf Pickling Cucumber (click).

What I notice about the variety is that it produces fruit "without pollination." So, it is a parthenocarpic plant. Little Leaf is popular and sold by a number of seed companies. You can also look in that High Mowing link for Adam, another parthenocarpic variety.

Steve

 

[hoodat]

I never had much luck with the true gherkins either. I'm looking into growing some mouse melons next year. They are supposed to be a good substitute and easier to grow.

 

[digitS']

Wait! Mouse melons???

I did a google search! Melothria scabra . . . never heard of them. Does this knowledge come to you Hoodat from living so close to the southern border?

This would be all I need - another melon to subject to our spring temperatures.

Okay, the Cucumis anguria, also called West Indies gherkin or burr gherkin, grew fine in my garden. It tasted good but was an enormous bother to peel & eat fresh . . . Especially behind the wheel of the pickup . . :/.

Steve

 

[Southern Gardener]

I also had a good cuke year - I grew Straight Eights. In the past, I've only gotten a few, but this year was great.

 

[thistlebloom]

Steve mentioned Little Leaf, and I grew that one last year. It did well, but not being a regular cuke grower I couldn't say if it did really well, or even less than well.

Well, I provided it a trellis, but it never climbed. I was pleased with what it gave me though, because I sort of forgot about it, as it wasn't climbing. When I finally gave it a good look, it had several fruits hiding under the leaves. They tasted, well, good....

 

[baymule]

My cucumbers dried up and died, even with me watering every day. I think they got wind burned. But a friend of mine tossed a bunch of seed on a pile where he had burned some cleared off trees. His took off, producing a 5 gallon bucket every other day. So I got to make my favorite sweet pickles, got 20 pints and 4 quarts.

 

[so lucky]

You know, some of the best cucumbers I ever grew was on an old burn pile.