Favorite slicing cucumbers

[b54red]

I often grow more than one variety of cucumbers each season and have found here in the very hot conditions that Sweet Success is almost always the top producer and usually one of the top two in taste. I have found others that taste great and perform well most years but not up to the standard that Sweet Success has demonstrated over a long period of time. This will be my first year in decades to only plant one variety of slicer so if Sweet Success is going to have a terrible year this should be the year.

Since we live in a hot humid climate I have found a few basic tricks that help make it through the season with generally good production. One is to use a tall fence for the plants to climb on. Also use a very thick mulch to maintain good moisture in the soil. I like to add some good organic matter when available fertilize the plants regularly with a liquid fertilizer every week or so once they start forming cucumbers. Do not set them out in the garden until the nights are regularly above 50 degrees as cold nights can really stunt their growth and delay production much more than waiting for warmer nights.

Bill

[MrBig46]

Originally Posted by MrBig46

We have a lot of new hybrid varieties of cucumbers that do not have a gene that causes bitterness. So even in worse conditions, cucumbers and their parts are not bitter. If anyone is interested, I can send some seeds to test.
Vladimír

I bought two varieties for this year:
Markýza F1 (for salad)- early field salátovka with highly balanced fruit and good health, -the genetically-not bitter and tolerant to downy mildew and powdery mildew.

Charlotte F1 (I like eat it right in the garden)- Very early, dense pickle with mostly female flowering, its fruits are slender, longer, balanced in shape, genetically not bitter.

[Wi-sunflower]

I like the middle east beit alpha types except for their price. Holy cow the seeds are expensive. Those are the little cocktail cucs you see in the stores. Diva falls in that class but for me, Diva is a cucumber beetle magnet. The fruit get so scarred they are unsalable. It seems every time I find another variety that grows well for me, they discontinue it and I have to start over. And figuring out which are beit alpha can be hard as many of the catalogs don't tell you that they are beit alphas.

Carol

[MrBig46]

I just want to add: I don't grow cucumbers in either the greenhouse or the foil tunnel. Because I grow them freely in flower beds and a lot of bees fly in the garden, I grow non-partenocarpic varieties. These are the two in the pictures. Partenocarpic varieties of both types are mostly sold here. I have already received some requests for seeds, if any of them are interested in the parthenocarpic variety, let them write to me. I will try to secure as soon as possible.
Vladimír

[Andrey_BY]

My favorite slicers are pickling cucumbers actually. They are universal for us - both modern partenocarpic hybrids like Herman (aka Mirabell F1) or Masha F1 and many Russian hybrids + old Soviet OP cuke varieties.

[ddsack]

I agree, Andrey. The old picklers have more of the intense cucumber taste, it's the peel that can be bitter, if you remove it they are not usually bitter. I love the new non-bitter peel ones too and grow them, but have to admit the taste is to me is not quite as interesting as the old fashioned ones.

[AKmark]

Socrates, it even smells like cucumber, excellent flavor. Nokya is a good Asian that replaced Tasty Jade, and has better Powdery Mildew resistance.

[GreenThumbGal_07]

I grew Sugar Crunch F1 and liked it a lot. Tried Sir Crunch a Lot F1 last summer and it was OK, I guess. Funny thing was how strong the vine/foliage smelled of pickles. Even the dead stump of the plant had a strong pickle smell. This summer I will try Sweet Success F1.

[stevenkh1]

I grow Bedfordshire Prize and Straight 8. According to old 1800s seed catalogs, Bedfordshire Prize was first cultivated in 1780 and was the prominant cuke grown here in America until the Civil War era. Has long 1/2" hair spines which easily come off sliding your hand down the cuke. Has that old fashioned cuke flavor. Pretty much extinct here in the U.S. but still grown in England where I got the original seeds. I have not had any issues with disease (unlike my zukes where PM & DM tend to overwhelm my zuke plants).

[Yak54]

Originally Posted by GreenThumbGal_07

I grew Sugar Crunch F1 and liked it a lot. Tried Sir Crunch a Lot F1 last summer and it was OK, I guess. Funny thing was how strong the vine/foliage smelled of pickles. Even the dead stump of the plant had a strong pickle smell. This summer I will try Sweet Success F1.

I bet you will like Sweet Success as much as I do !

[GreenThumbGal_07]

Originally Posted by Yak54

I bet you will like Sweet Success as much as I do !

Yes, it has been great! Only thing, the vines are starting to wind down. I've picked maybe half a dozen good cukes from two vines. Vines are healthy but they don't seem to be setting much new fruit.
Very nice cucumber though. I love it in cucumber salad.

[zipcode]

We did a taste test this year, including a few different types, and the classic english cucumbers were universally considered better than the asian types. The pickling were also very good, but worse in terms of skin and can get bitter. I liked the texture on asians better, a nice fine crunch. There are also the mini english cucumbers which are becoming very popular in supermarkets, they taste the same as the big ones.
The mini we had, called Passandra, also is better against disease (downy mildew).

[Chapinz8]

I've tried various varieties but I always come back to Sweet Success. I keep it trellised & it likes moisture. Good flavor & keep your eye on a small one because it won't stay that way long.

[habitat_gardener]

I liked two new hybrids that I bought as plants last year.
Itachi F1 is a white cucumber.
Unagi F1 is a cross between middle eastern and asian varieties.
Both were quite productive.

[PaulF]

The Diva that my wife grows and has grown for a couple of years has been the best tasting and most productive she has ever grown. And that variety stayed sweet and crisp right up to frost.