Cucumbers: a garden gift that keeps on giving
Cucumbers you pick up from the grocery store cannot compare to cucumbers you pick from your garden.
Straight from the garden, cucumbers have a snap to them and a burst of freshness in scent and flavor.
I remember helping my daddy in the garden and preparing a space for the cucumbers. He was a very precise gardener who made hills from the dirt where he dropped 3 to 4 cucumber seeds in each one. Each hill was spaced about 4 ft apart and heavily mulched in straw to keep the cucumbers clean and off the direct ground. If it sounds like a lot of work, it was, so my gardening strategy has shifted a bit when it comes to growing cucumbers.
First of all, I start my cucumbers indoors. In the next week or so, I’ll be transplanting them into a double row in one of the raised garden beds. (First row: 4” from the back of the bed; second row: 8” from the back of the bed.)
We use a netting trellis to get the cucumbers to grow up instead of out, and as natural crawlers, the cucumbers will latch onto the netting and eventually find their way up and over the framework of the garden bed.
Tip: We use some plastic ribbons to help train the cucumbers where to go. Eventually they will make a “roof” on top of the frame, and the cucumbers will hang down in the middle of the bed making them easy to pick.
2019 garden bed with onions in front and cucumbers behind.We’re planting the cucumbers in a shared bed with onions, carrots, kale, lettuce and spinach. As these crops come out, the cucumbers will provide nice shade for another planting of yellow and zucchini squash.
There are two varieties of cucumbers we plant. Tried and true, these provide us with long, slender cucumbers throughout the summer months.
Burpee Seeds Early Pride: 55 days to maturity from direct sow. Best picked when 8” to 8-1/2” long.
Park Seeds Garden Sweet Burpless: 55 days to maturity from direct sow. Best picked when 10” to 12” long.
As garden space opens up, I always direct sow more Early Pride cucumbers. In a protected bed, we can have fresh garden cucumbers clear to November. There’s nothing like garden cucumbers at your family Thanksgiving dinner!
“How deeply seated in the human heart is the liking for gardens and gardening. ” — Alexander Smith, Poet
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