Cucumbers 2023

[chrysanthemum]

2022 was a bad cucumber year for me.  After an over abundance the previous summer, I didn’t plant so many last year.  Then with the drought and excess heat, I had a few slicers to eat, but I never managed to make a jar of pickles.  That was a sad thing for my family.

This year I don’t have a lot of cucumbers either, but they’re cheerful little plants, and I have hopes of fruit if the weather cooperates.  I’m growing three varieties: Beit Alpha and Sumter primarily for pickles and Southern Delight Hybrid for slicing.  I had run out of hybrid seeds and had not planned on buying more, but I missed it when I didn’t have it.  It does well down here, though I didn’t plant it last summer, so I don’t know if it would have done any better in the drought than any others.  It’s back in my garden this year, though, so I hope it will do well.  I love fresh cucumbers.

My cucumber beds are on either side of the arched trellis at the front of the main garden.  I only have six plants this year, the picklers in the first bed, the slicers in the one on the other side of the arch.  They’ve all started to put on male flowers, and a few females are beginning to show up.




I believe this is one of my Beit Alpha plants.

[chrysanthemum]

I had my camera outside again today, so I took a shot of the Sumter cucumber plant.  It has the most vigorous vines of my three varieties at this point.  I just love it when tendrils curl around a trellis and the plants start to climb.  I do spend time sometimes redirecting them, but I really enjoy it.

[chrysanthemum]

We picked our first cucumber of the season today.  It was the Sumter variety, and the plants have some more growing now.  The picture shows my seven year old holding the picked cucumber near the plant on which is grew.  The other is a smaller one on the other plant.






This is a start of my Southern Delight Slicing Cucmber.



This is the Beit Alpha cucumber.  Somehow I was expecting these to be more spiky, but I think my expectations were just incorrect.  I’ve read that they do well for both slicking and pickling, and I was intending them for pickles, so I think I just pictured in my mind what I’m used to for pickling cucumbers.  I’m looking forward to trying one of these.

[FrostyTurnip]

Congrats!  Those look super yummy.  

[chrysanthemum]

The cucumbers really liked yesterday’s rain, I think.  

Beit Alpha is on the left, Sumter on the right, and Southern Delight [hybrid] along the bottom.

[FrostyTurnip]

*Breaks out the cutting board and cutlery*   Looks super yummy to me.  I just put out some seeds for cukes yesterday.  

[rdback]

May 23, 2023 23:31:07 GMT -6 FrostyTurnip said:

*Breaks out the cutting board and cutlery*   Looks super yummy to me.  I just put out some seeds for cukes yesterday.  

Me too B! Great minds...

[chrysanthemum]

I gave away the Sumters since I knew that I would have more to come.

I had the children do a taste test on the Southern Delight and Beit Alpha. It was a very strange result. My daughter said that the Beit Alpha was bitter. My son said it was normal, but then he said he thought it had a strange aftertaste. Both my husband and I tasted it and thought it was sweeter than other cucumbers.

I ended up just mixing the slices together, salting them for a bit, and then pouring over a little apple cider vinegar mixed with a pinch of sugar and a couple of fronds of chopped dill weed. The kids said it was a little on the sweet side {maybe my pinch of sugar was too big], but all the slices were gobbled up.

I have more Sumters and another Beit Alpha on the vine that I think I’ll probably pick tomorrow. I may see if I can do some fermented pickle slices, as those seem more popular, but I also like to add them to things like tuna salad, so I may not have quite enough for a jar yet.

[woodeye]

I grew Beit Alpha cucumbers several years ago because I saw that they were parthenocarpic, and wanted to see what all the fuss was about in that regard. I'm not a good judge of which cucumber varieties taste the best, simply because I absolutely love them all regardless of variety.

I do remember that the Beit Alpha cucumbers produced well, and of course are a deer favorite. 🦌

Not to be deterred, I'll have cucumbers growing this year inside the Iron Curtain, and unless a squirrel takes a liking to them I'll have all I can stand. 🐿️

Going to get the cucumber seeds out of the freezer seed vault right now!

[chrysanthemum]

I think I agree with you about loving them all, Woodeye. There are some varieties that turn bitter more quickly in the heat down here, though, and a truly bitter cucumber is not at all enjoyable. I’ve learned when making a big jar of pickles that I need to sample a slice of each and every cucumber in the batch to make sure that I don’t use any bitter ones. Southern Delight is less prone to bitterness than some others I’ve grown. I’ll see how Beit Alpha and Sumter do.

I’m not sure that I’ve ever had squirrels go after my cucumbers before. I have had them go after all sorts of fruit in our back yard: peaches, apples, pears, pomegranates. They also seem to love tomatoes, and I”m pretty sure that one took a bite out of one of my Seminole Pumpkins at one point and knocked it off the vine. I wouldn’t be surprised if they took a fancy to a cucumber at some point, though.

[chrysanthemum]

My mother has not had good success with cucumbers this year, so the other day when I was finishing some homeschooling testing with my kids, she planted out four hills of cucumbers with seeds I had brought up.  I think three hills are Sumter, and one hill is Southern Delight Hybrid.

This morning since it had rained last night, I pounded some rebar into the ground and put up my wire fencing/electrical conduit trellises that I brought back from Texas with me.  If the cucumbers don’t get eaten off, I’m really looking forward to having some climbing plants.  [Yes, there really are cucumbers at the base of each trellis in the photo.  I think there’s also a volunteer potato since she planted them where she had dug potatoes earlier this year.]

[FrostyTurnip]

It’s so wonderful to see you over there in the new garden.  Thank you for sharing this journey.  I bet you’ll be overloaded with cukes pretty soon.  

[chrysanthemum]

It was pretty wonderful to be doing something in the new garden, though it was a bit hot yesterday for it. I’ll be very excited if the cucumbers start climbing soon. You know how I love curling tendrils.

[rdback]

Jul 29, 2023 20:54:48 GMT -6 chrysanthemum said:

My mother has not had good success with cucumbers this year, so the other day when I was finishing some homeschooling testing with my kids, she planted out four hills of cucumbers with seeds I had brought up.

I know the feeling well Chrys, at least initially. I started 3 varieties, only to have all of them eaten by "something". So, I re-planted too. They survived whatever ate them the first time, and are just starting to produce. You mentioned "volunteer" potato (I first read it as Tomato, lol), so I thought I'd post this pic from the other day. There's a volunteer Tomato (probably a Matt's Wild Cherry) growing amongst the cucumbers, to the bottom-middle-right-ish. Hope yours take off as well. There's still plenty of time.

[chrysanthemum]

I’m glad to hear there’s plenty of time, rdback. It was sixty degrees here this morning, and my youngest who was only one when we moved to Texas said, “It feels like autumn or winter.”

Your cucumbers look great. What varieties do you have?

I showed the picture to my mother. She was delighted by all the flowers on your vines.