Off-season Reading About Growing Cucumbers

[GoDawgs]

The new article from Pam Dowling of Sustainable Market Gardening arrived in my inbox this morning. It's about growing cucumbers and has a lot of handy information in it.

To access the article, go to https://www.sustainablemarketfarming.com/ and click on Pam's Blog under the header.

Near the end of the article there are several good links for "Identifying Diseases of Vegetables" from Penn State, stink bug management and a "Resource Guide for Organic Insect and Disease Management" from Cornell.

[Cranraspberry]

Thank you, that was an interesting read! We love picklers and had fantastic results last year with the BW-resistant variety County Fair. It was incredibly productive, delicious and lasted all season with one planting, although by the end the mildew definitely set in. I grew Boston Pickling, Little Leaf and County Fair to compare and this coming year County Fair will be our only pickler.

Unfortunately the cucumber beetle lures didn’t work for us at all, and I’m kind of mad at myself for trying them. They caught quite a few beneficials including three precious honey bees before I tossed them, and not a single cucumber beetle.

County Fair in action:

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[GoDawgs]

....Unfortunately the cucumber beetle lures didn’t work for us at all, and I’m kind of mad at myself for trying them. They caught quite a few beneficials including three precious honey bees before I tossed them, and not a single cucumber beetle.

Beautiful cukes! How did your Little Leaf do? I've tried them twice and they never thrived while the National Pickler I always use did well.

I've never found traps to work right so I don't use them. In fact I think they lure in things that normally might not even visit like the beneficials and honey bees. How ironic that your trap didn't get the first cucumber beetle!

[rxkeith]

i would also add, first remove woodchucks.



keith

[Cranraspberry]

@GoDawgs the Little Leaf was a total bust. I suspect some of it had to do with the plant getting suffocated by the bigger varieties, but it never got bigger than a couple of feet, produced maybe one deformed fruit and was the first to succumb to mildew. I had high hopes but doubt I’ll be planting again.

County Fair impressed me so much that this year I bought a 100 pack of seeds and plan to offer them to fellow community gardeners and members of my local gardening group. BW is rampant in this region and everyone I know really struggles with growing cucumbers. They still eventually succumb to all the fungal diseases, but not nearly as quickly as with BW.
I also purchased seeds of BW resistant Shintokiwa - a long Asian variety that I’m excited to try. Last year we grew Suyo and it was incredibly productive right till it succumbed to BW, so hopefully Shintokiwa will be similar in production and flavor. Also trying non-resistant Green Finger because I was curious about Beit Alpha types, and Mini Me will go in a grow bag - that one appears to not like the heat, so will likely be cut down before BW sets in.

[GoDawgs]

@GoDawgs the Little Leaf was a total bust. I suspect some of it had to do with the plant getting suffocated by the bigger varieties, but it never got bigger than a couple of feet, produced maybe one deformed fruit and was the first to succumb to mildew. I had high hopes but doubt I’ll be planting again.

We're not the only ones who have had trouble with Little leaf. Lots of others too.

My sister wants to try the Suyo long because the long type she buys at the grocery keeps so much better in the refrigerator than regular cukes. It's probably hot house grown and no telling what variety it is and whether it's English or Asian in origin. I saw the Shintokiwa in a catalog and almost ordered it but didn't. I'll be interested in seeing how it does for you!

[AKgardener]

I tried little leaf as well absolutely a fail won’t be trying them again.

[Cranraspberry]

@GoDawgs Interesting, I had read so many good reviews of Little Leaf on Houzz with many folks preferring it to County Fair and saying they’d never plant another pickling variety… I wonder if this could be a recent change since a lot of the Houzz reviews were from 10+ years ago?

In my personal experience Suyo unfortunately didn’t keep very long, if I recall correctly it kept less than County Fair. Nothing like the long seedless cukes from the grocery store. The ends would start getting soft and then before you know it you have a bag of slimy cucumber mush on your hands. Fortunately I have a neighbor who was a huge fan, so he got most of our excess.