Cucumber Recommendations

[Adenn1]

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

[feraltomatoes]

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

[Tomstrees]

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 ~

[bully]

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

[Worth1]

Market More is a real good one for me.

[jerseyjohn61]

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

[GreenThumbGal_07]

Sweet Slice (hybrid) is delicious.

GTG

[cottonpicker]

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.

[Teacher_Mike]

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 little while to "take off," but once they did, they kept us in slicers the season long with all but no effort.

[jerseyjohn61]

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

[Lee]

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

[Mischka]

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.



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? "burpless"! :wink:

[Adenn1]

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

[shelleybean]

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.

[carolyn137]

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.

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.