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Cucumbers are ancient, easy to grow and yummy
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Published: August 23, 2008
Just about the time of year when powdery mildew and squash bugs get the better of the squash plants, I tire of eating squash. The first few wheelbarrows-full are fine, but then I reach my saturation point.
Not so with cucumbers. If they would come up with an evergreen one, I'd be first in line to plant it. Cucumbers try their best to overwhelm you with massive production, but as with tomatoes, it's hard to get sick of something you've longed for all winter.
History apparently agrees with me on this count. Carbon-dated, cultivated cucumber seed was excavated on land at the Myanmar-Thailand border and dated to 7750 B.C. The ancient Romans were fond of cucumbers, and both Pliny and Virgil noted them. They began to show up in France and England in the 14th century, and the Spaniards probably introduced them to the Pueblo Indians of North America.
The U.S. produces 4 percent of the world's cucumbers, about 2.4 billion pounds a year. We are fourth behind China, Turkey and Iran.
The cucumber is simple to grow if a few basic rules are followed. Cucumbers grow on vines and so can be space-intensive unless trellised or grown on a fence. There are several advantages to doing this besides the obvious. Better air circulation reduces disease, and harvest is easier when the fruit is more visible than when it is sprawling on the ground. When growing such long cucumbers as the English variety, trellising affords long straight fruit.
Regular watering
Besides support, which is optional, a cucumber plant asks little of its owner other than regular watering and keeping an eye on the bugs. They like a soil pH in the 6.0 to 7.0 range, and moist, rich, organic soil is best.
Cucumber vines are shallow-rooted, so regular watering is important. An organic mulch such as shredded leaves will help preserve moisture and keep the weeds down. Cucumbers want to be in full sun. It takes around 60 days to start harvesting cucumbers from seed-sown plants. Cucumbers like it warm, so they need to be planted after the danger of frost or started indoors and moved carefully into the garden. They resent root disturbance.
A typical cucumber has both male and female flowers with the female bearing the cucumber. Some varieties are listed as ‘gynoecious' meaning that they bear only female flowers. Gynoecious varieties are thought to be far more productive as they don't waste energy-producing male flowers. The seed pack of gynoecious varieties will always have a few marked seed, usually dyed a different color, that produce male flowers and assure pollination.
This year I am trying some baby cucumbers called Baby Persian Green Fingers. They are small and deep green with a pebbly skin and sweet white flesh. They are harvested at about 4 to 6 inches. I am also growing an English Cucumber called Chelsea Pride. English cucumbers are typically found in the grocery store wrapped in plastic to extend their short shelf life. They are long, thin fruits with dark skin and a mild flavor. They can be harvested when they reach between a foot and a foot and a half long. They are thin-skinned and delicious. I have both of these varieties occupying the same trellis, but each is so distinct that there is never any confusion when it comes to harvesting.
There are cucumber varieties grown specifically for pickles and "burpless" slicing varieties that avoid the tendency to give the consumer gas. Some cucumbers have a tendency to bitterness, usually found in the skin and seeds. Bitterness can be attributed to genetics and to such adverse growing conditions as temperature, moisture and disease. There is no truth to the old wive's tale that bitter cucumbers are the result of cross breeding with squash and melons; that can't happen.
Cucumbers are susceptible to several insect and disease problems. Among them, powdery mildew and cucumber beetles are probably the most common. Some people swear by a mixture of 1 tablespoon of baking soda to 1 gallon of water with 1 teaspoon of vegetable oil added to combat powdery mildew.
It must be applied weekly, preferably before the disease begins to show up. Some references say that given powdery mildew's aversion to water, a weekly spray-down with plain water will have much the same effect. A disease of hot and humid weather, powdery mildew usually shows up late in the season.
There are two kinds of cucumber beetles, striped and spotted. The spotted cucumber beetle has black spots over a chartreuse green background, and the striped cucumber beetle is a drab olive with black stripes down its length. Both are oval and about a quarter-inch long. They are especially noteworthy because they are vectors for cucumber-wilt diseases that will make quick work of the cucumber crop. They can be controlled with sprays, but hand-picking the bugs off regularly is the better option to avoid troubling beneficial cucumber-pollinators.
■ If you have a gardening question or story idea, write to David Bare in care of Features, Winston-Salem Journal, P.O. Box 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27101-3159, or send e-mail to his attention to gardening@wsjournal.com.
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