Cucumber Recommendations
 

I have one more trellis open for a new cucumber variety...I will be growing Boothby's Blonde and Tendergreen Burpless again this year. Last year I tried Straight Eight and had little luck with it...few fruit and died an early death due to disease.

I guess I would like to try a traditional slicer...

Thanks,
Adenn1

Armenian cucumber.
By far my favorite.
Pretty, prolific and palate pleasing.
I think I read that it is actually a bitter melon.

Diva - I can say they were awesome last year ~
lots of them ~ great taste ~
all female flowers - low seed counts ~
an all around good cuke ~

Tom

couple shown here ~

[img]http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e94/tomstrees/Cukes.jpg[/img]

My brother gave me a couple of lemon cukes...they were perfectly round and yellow..real good too

Market More is a real good one for me.

I second the Lemon cukes Bully, as they are my wife's
faves. She finds them light and refreshings. I'm a
pickle person myself....JJ61

Cucumber Recommendations
 

Sweet Slice (hybrid) is delicious.

GTG

County Fair cuke
 

Most of my cukes always bite the dust prematurily due to Bacterial Wilt. I've found that "County Fair" resists BW better than most & has a longer productive lifetime in my garden.

2 years ago, tried Straight Eight and they were terribely UNproductive...most likely due to lack of pollination in that wet season. (At the time Carolyn offered to make some alternate suggestions, leading me to believe that she didn't think too much of S.E. - but somehow we never got around to her suggestion :? )

Changed to Diva last year, which does not need pollination, and results were MUCH better. Growing them again. I will note that they took a [i]little[/i] while to "take off," but once they did, they kept us in slicers the season long with all but no effort. :D

Adenn,

I just noticed your in the Philly area. Worth's
suggestion of MarketMore is a good one as
they were developed for the Northeast. I've
grown them and they are excellent producers.
Just give them lots of deep, rich humis....JJ61

Gotta give another big thumbs up to the breeder's at Johnny's for coming out with such a great variety in DIVA.
Definitely a keeper for it low seed count!

Lee

I'm going to weigh in on this one and suggest that you try Poona Kheera.

I purchased seed for this one at Baker Creek; they claim it's originally from India. I've been growing it for 5 years.

The cucumbers from this variety look more like a Russet potato; slightly more yellow skin and elongated.

[img]http://www.ozarksgardens.com/jpg/d/p/RgFYQNBooqAJ/boWxORZfbzixgZA/poona-kheera-cucumbers-jpg.jpg[/img]

They are easy to peel, most excellently crunchy and the seeds are small and few. The plants are sturdy and seem to withstand anything that Mother Nature throws at them.

The plants bear heavily here in Massachusetts, too.

My favorite characteristic for this variety? "[u]burpless[/u]"! :wink:

Thanks everyone for the advice/reccommendations--now I feel like dropping Boothbys and Tendergreen and selecting three new varities! What the heck...why not!

I had trouble the last two years with bacterial wilt...despite my efforts with Daconil. The cukes are going into a new spot behind my garage...so will see what difference this makes. I had better make my mind up and starting ordering more seeds!

Thanks again...

Adenn1

For slicers, I prefer the thin skinned kind like Muncher and Mideast Prolific. If you want to try the pickling route and just use them as slicers, I like Snow's Fancy and Boston Pickling.

I've grown so many cuke varieties it would make your head spin.

Starting about 10 years ago I only grow either the Armenian cukes, which are really C melo, in the melon family, rather than C. sativus, but they are outstanding. Several different varieties.

Then I'l grow the Asian cukes such as Suyo Long and Tasty Evergreen and lots more whose names I'd have to look up. Superb taste, burpless, tender skins and all.

Poona Kheera? You bet Mischka, have been growing it for years. Got my first seeds I think from Glenn Drowns, aka Sandhill Preservation, who is the Curator for Cucurbits for SSE.

Bacterial Wilt? Transmitted by yellow and black cuke beetles. So to prevent you have to control them, which isn't easy, but you can try pyrethrin, which often does help.

The other thing you can do is to throw row covers over the plants until the blossoms appear at which time you have to take the covers off to allow for insect pollination. But, by delaying possible cuke beetle transmission of disease you usually can get a great crop. Symptoms of the two diseases cuke beetles can transmit to cukes, melons and squash are both viral and bacterial and both can be transmitted at the same time.
it takes about a month after disease transmission before any symptoms appear for either disease.

I was just thinking this afternoon, I do that from time to time, :) , that I'd love to have someone put up my trellis in the raised bed so I could have some home grown cukes this summer. And for sure I'll have someone plant a couple of hills of summer squash and I've got my faves there as well. :lol:

AS for tomatoes, Martha, aka gardenmama, is going to raise my plants for me in VA and send them up, and is doing that for free, which amazes me. She has seeds for almost all that I might want except for two, and those are Mama Leone and Sara's Galapagos. There will be just 12 plants and no seeds will be saved from these.

Many good folks have written to me offering to grow out some varieties for seed production, and I've got to get on top of that this weekend to see how that might go.

So do consider the Armenian and Asian cukes as well as that lovely Poona Kheera.

I will be placing an order today with Baker Creek for Poona Kheera! Very unique and anxious to see its disease resistence. I am going to drop Boothby's and Tendergreen for this year and try two other new varities...maybe an Asian variety and then one local slicer.

Decisions!

Poona Kheera? Glenn doesn't give it much of a sales pitch, unfortunately, so I was going to give it a pass for one he does (a rarity for him!) and one I've liked in the past, Uzbekski.

Any comments on Uzbekski vs Poona Kheena? Or on Mirella, one he particularly 'raves' about?

TIA,
Jennifer

:oops:

What's Boothby's Blonde like? We got that one as a freebie and our 6 year old wants to grow it on his teepee this year. It looks like it will withstand growing up a structure like that. I assume you just tie it as it grows until it's strong enough to wind around on its own with its tendrils?

Mischka, I went to Johnny's to get some of the Poona Kheeras by there was a 'crop failure.' Will check again next year.

Earl, Sandhill also sells Poona Kheera and if I looked hard enough I might be able to find some 2-3 year old seeds here which should still be good. Your choice.

Jennifer, I haven't grown the other varieties you mentioned.

Julianna, I haven't grown the Boothby's Blonde either.

Since moving to my new place in 1999 I've cut way back on most all vine crops and just two hills of my fave Asian or Armenian cukes are plenty for me each summer since my cat kids don't like cukes. :)

Carolyn, sure a few seeds would be great. No hurry as I won't need them until a month or so. Thanks.

Sorellina:

Boothby's Blonde was a very good cuke in my opinion...very good flavor and one that I did not have to skin. I grew mine on a trellis...and yes I had to tie the fist few tendrils down till they caught on. I picked the fruit when they were small...around 4"--I found that the larger ones developed a pretty large seed cavity. Some of the fruit were a very pale yellow...some came out a dark yellow.

Thought I would bring this thread up again to give a report on my cukes. I ended up with four varities: Poona Keera, Marketmore 76, Boothby's Blond and Burpee's Hybrid.

Boothby's is in first place...did not seem to dislike a cooler spell we had after planting...growing up the trellis now--about 2.5' tall--and just starting to show fruit. Marketmore 76 in second...not too far behind...with fruit. Burpee and Poona Keera both starting now...just about 12" tall and will be attaching to trellis soon.

I am looking forward to not buying small expensive cukes at the store...that have little flavor :D

Adenn
Good going!

Mine are doing great too, it’s a shame that cucumbers have gone the way of the store bought tomato.
I was in a hurry and hoed up a mound around an old mesquite tree in the front yard and let them go.

You made some good choices and I don’t think you will be sorry.

Worth

For some reason or the other- I cannot grow cucumbers for the life of me!!.

Some year I get them to grow ok but most of the time zilch.

I start off with good germination, leading to lovely big healthy looking plants, dozens of varieties I have tried- but as soon as I plant them in the soil or compost they collapse and die within a few days, and I just cant get to the bottom of the reason, or they grow for a while until about three feet high and then collapse and die.

And yet- tomatoes I can grow to perfection, ??? so why not cucumbers, I have even tried them on high nitrogen feed which is supposed to make them go,but-zilch, what am I doing wrong :( :cry: :mrgreen: .

Vine borers?

Look close to the start of the vine, you should see where the grubs crawled in and start eating away on the inside of the vine, they leave a little sawdust pile where they go in
.
A wasp like critter lays its eggs around the base of the plant and there you go.
The vine will collapse over night I hate the things!!!!


Worth

Thanks Worth1, you might well have solved a problem I have being trying to fix for several years :D , do you spray them with anything in particular -if so at what stage of growth ??. :mrgreen:

I really don’t know what to tell you, I do know that Bill P posted a picture of him stabbing one of the wasp like critters on the vegetable forum at another site last year. :shock:
By the time I knew I had them it was too late, as is the case most of the time. :(
Look vine borers on the web or in a book they should tell you what to do to prevent them.
That is IF it’s what you have in the UK.
Sorry, not at home now to look in my organic pest control book, and wont be for 2 weeks.

Best of luck Worth