Your best (favorite) cucumber

I have been searching the internet and seed catalogs for hours and am now just confused. Would you please help me? What is your favorite cucumber to grow in your home garden?

I'll be making this same post in several other veggie categories. Appreciate any help you can give.

Lilygardener

Straight Nine

I only grow cucumbers for pickles as I don't really like them fresh.Lemon and Picollo di Parigi are both outstanding varieties and extremely productive.

Once again thanks to Farmerdill and Zebraman. You two are obviously the resident experts on vegetable gardening.

I will try straight nine. I an not able to can or pickle. Too dangerous to can; I tried once and spent a fortune on equipment and was afraid to eat what I canned. I would not know how to begin pickling but appreciate your thoughtfulness in responding.

I do cook. Have you tried sauted pickles in a butter sauce, Zebraman? One of my favorite light sandwiches is thinly sliced cucumbers, soaked in a water/vinegar mixture for a while, dried off and served on light bread with a mixture of mayonnaise and cream cheese as a spread. If you have not tried those you might enjoy.

Lilygardener

The variety called "Cool Breeze." It's the only cucumber I know that never gets bitter, no matter what size you harvest them.

Thanks Lettuceman. I'll look for Cool Breeze. I want to try a few varities and appreciate the input.

Lilygardener

I like Pioneer. It's a pickling variety, but it tastes really great fresh and you don't have to peel it. My other cukes were enfeebled by mildew, but the Pioneer plants kept kicking out cukes. It's a hybrid from Stokes seeds.

Thank you paracelsus,

It's great to have guidelines to go by when selecting what would be good to try. I'll be looking for Pioneer.

Lilygardner

I planted 3 different varieties this year and the only one that was not bitter was the one called (Muncher). I ordered it off the internet. You do not need to peel it. It was very good and I will try it again next year.

I really like Lemon Apple cuke (sometimes referred to as just "Lemon cuke"). Also, to beat the bugs and have a nice continuing crop I'd recommend Little Leaf, a parthenocarpic strain, and you can grow it under Reemay/row covers and not have to rely on insects to pollinate it.

Shoe

Montana: Muncher sounds delicious.

Shoe: Lemon Apple sounds like a dessert. H-U-M-M! Lemon apple cuke cake? Consider the possibilities! I just can't reisist anything with a cute name.

Thanks all. I'm making my list and checking it twice.

Any of the burp less varieties. And straight 8 is a good one as well

Straight eight. OK. Farmerdill recommended straight nine. Are they related?

Very similar, Straight Nine is a little larger and maybe one point better.

I like National Pickling. Let the earlier ones grow a little longer for slicers, then when they start producing better use them for pickling. No bitter ones here. ☺

Red

Red,
did you order your National Pickling cucumbers off the internet? And how did you care for them during the growing season? I'm asking, because the ones I planted this year were very bitter. All of them were bitter.

I planted the muncher variety in the same area, and they were not bitter.

It only rained once all summer, so the watering was done by well water. One month was over 100 degrees every day and made the leaves wilt alot. Another thing I thought might be the problem, was that I may have planted them too close together and it took water and nutrients away from each other.

Any comments welcom. DM

DM,

I bought my starts at a local nursery. Set out 3 plants to a hill. They were planted over a mound (12")of composted manure, then 2" of garden soil. We had a very dry summer here also so I kept my hills watered.

Red,
I planted seeds and thinned them to 4 plants per hill. I also watered alot. Thanks for the response.

I planted National Pickling cucumbers, too. I let them grow a little larger for slicing and did not have any issues with bitterness. I bought seeds off the rack at the local home store and planted in slightly composted soil...the area I live in already has great soil, "blackland prairie."

Carmen for slicing, cool Breeze for pickles, oh and I like the lemom round one too XX Jeannine

JOHHNY'S 2008 Catalog, pg 27, Cucumer, Slicing, Cat #2989, Socrates (F1), pkt $9.35, 15 seeds, 52 days, Excellent producer, 7-8" long, thin skin, tolerates cool weather.

Lilygardener, this is from my data base for seed purchases for '08'. I tried these rather expensive seeds in '07' and was please with the four mounds that generated way more than we could consume. About 250 pounds worth went to the food bank. Nice thing about this one is you can start it early, and the 100 plus degree days only made them produce more. I use soaker hoses so plants got watered at least three times a day, which didn't seem to hurt production. Can't tell you why the price is so high, but I certainly don't have any complaints, so I am reordering this same seed again this year.

Thanks for the suggestions y'all. Carmen, cool breeze and national pickling are on my list. I have seed for the one called 'lemon' and am looking forward to the flavor that generated that name.

mraider3: I like the idea of having enough to share. Socrates sounds like it is worth the price and I will try it if Johnny has any left.

lilygardner, "Lemon" cuke wasn't named that due to its flavor but because it is a round, yellow cucumber, about the size of a lemon. It has a fantastic flavor but no where near lemony. I think you'll like it though, it was one of my most sought after by the restaurants I used to sell to.

Shoe

I like the taste of it and you can always grow more than one variety :)

Lemony is good . my fav I got lucky and one acutally grew for me :)
I grew one plant and for the life of me wish i grew more !!!
mraider i m going to look into those seeds you recomended.
I am planting for a food bank this yr and plan on donating alot for the bounty ( well at least i hope somthign grows lol ) if i can get a good one that is a good producer.
I m still a bit new to this . I have had trouble in the past iwth cucs. Beetles just beat me :( every yr. I have a secret weapon this yr Chickens !!
sue

And inter plant them with radishes. The beetles will go for the radishes first. Just pull up and destroy any infected radishes and replant for some eatin type.......:)

At the price Johhny's charges for Socrates (F1) there should be plenty of seeds to go around. I just wish I had something to compare them too. I thought I would have some problems with our short season growing cukes, and although slow to start, once they started producing I could not keep up with production. My weekly trips to the food bank neted over 200 lbs of squash and cukes. Hope they work for the rest of you as well. Would like to see some feedback on any comparisoms.

mraider,
How many plants did you grow? What was your method of feeding your cucumbers? Mine did not do well at all this year and two varieties were so bitter. Thanks DM

Interesting thread, I am thinking of growing some cucumbers this year and it helps.

I usually do at 3 varieties, usually one burp less. And the other's for pickling. The lemon one's do up nicely for canning and look both wonderful as pickles but mix nicely with other cukes and in chow chows, that sort of thing. They have an almost sweet flavor. I think I'm going to add some extras plants of those this year. If you have a space problem, train them up a sturdy trellis. They are cleaner and easier to pick that way. DH scrounged some rather battered PVC pipe and we're going to do a little improving with it for some trellising.

doccat,

Thanks, I'll do a trellis!

Just make sure it's sturdy, son. You can trellis more things than you realize. The small watermelon are great that way, less problem with bugs. I have my friends saving me all their old pantyhose and knee highs. I use them as a "sling" to hold the fruit. Cukes, peas, beans, watermelon, cantelope can all go on a trellis. Plus if you plan it right, you can use the "shade" from the vines growing on the trellis and inter plant with cool lovers, like lettuce, spinach that sort of thing. I always inter plant a bit of dill with my cukes. I use a sunken pot, since dill will take over, but that way I always have fresh dill handy for pickling. :)

I've never had much luck trellesing, but I'll give it another go.

This message was edited Jan 8, 2008 3:32 PM

i did Japanese Climbing but had no luck. Of course i have not much experience. but like i said beetles got the best of me.
i was wondering if this idea would work for cucs or other climbing veg's
Using cattle panel as a hoop style trellis, plant cuc's on the outside and train them to go over the panels . You could make this as tall as you want or as narrow. ?
I hope i explained it well enough lol :) i was just sitting and thinking here in the rain. :)
i think i might try this out and see what i come up with . Just wondering if anyone else had an idea on this method
sue

The only problem I can see with that may be the heat generated by the cattle panel and you'd have to figure out a way to attach the vines. I'd overplant the cukes and let the number of plants help with the heat problem.

would laying something over it help ? hmmm yes i forgot about the heat on that part. good to know.
Since i m out in a feild i m trying to think of ways to trellis things
tomatos i think i will let sprawl this yr. Heavy mulch the area with srtaw and leaves
still thinking
thanks doccat
sue

Do you have a scrap piece you could set straight up and hold in place with guy wires? I've been eyeballing cattle paneling to do a hoop green house. We may not need the county permission for that...something to do with the materials?...DH is better at understanding that stuff than I am, but if it will work I want to get it started...Like yesterday!

Hi Lily and everyone. I'm brand new to DG. This is my first post. Glad to meet you all!

"Homemade Pickles" is my favorite so far. It's a pickling cucumber (obviously), but it's great eating fresh, never bitter. The cucs come all at once though, so if you want cucs all season, you have to succession plant. I'm in south central PA so I don't know if they'd do well in GA. Seeds are popular and should be easy to find.

I hope I'm not breaking any rules and I guess everyone knows about this, but Cornell maintains a great site where you can see and rate veg. varieties: http://vegvariety.cce.cornell.edu/. I'm on there as "Matergirl"

Welcome to the forum, CompostR!

Hey great CompostR
i think i have herd of Homemade but never realy gave it a second look. I think i will .
Glad to meet ya's
doccat did you look at the cattle panel greenhouse thread ? I know some have done them here at DG
and there are pics too, i like pics.
sue