Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Growing in Greenhouses & Polytunnels => Topic started by: JayG on July 23, 2014, 12:39
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As many members will remember, probably a little wearily, I have failed for 3 consecutive years to get Passandra cukes to stay alive long enough to produce anything in the GH.
I now have lots of little Picolino's, one or two of which are ready to pick today (what do you mean "They're a bit small aren't they?" - they are supposed to be! :tongue2: :lol:)
Am I chuffed? Well, fairly: (http://www.sherv.net/cm/emo/dancing/funny-dance.gif) (http://www.sherv.net/)
I'm not blaming the variety for previous failures, I think they were just getting too much sun (if you look at the pic carefully you can see I've not totally overcome the leaf scorching but it's nowhere near as bad as before.)
(http://dl.dropbox.com/s/o1o1igpdgt5a3m3/First%20GH%20cukes.JPG)
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:D
May you have many a happy cucumber sandwich.
Will you like me now be giving up growing cucumbers ? :lol:
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Very nice JayG. They look perfect. :D
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Lovely well done
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Excellent result, JayG! Well worth the perseverence!
Will you now be writing notes on how to grow cucumbers in a concrete block? Surely this is a new idea!
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Will you now be writing notes on how to grow cucumbers in a concrete block?
Probably got more nutrients in than been and queued multipurp has !
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:lol: True!
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Will you now be writing notes on how to grow cucumbers in a concrete block? Surely this is a new idea!
I suppose I could pretend that having taken on Lardman's advice about treating 'em mean I went to the trouble of constructing surroundings as much like a Soviet Gulag as possible, and you can't get much meaner than that! :ohmy:
Truth is the concrete blocks are the uprights for my removable staging - not quite such a strange choice when I confess I bought them to make the base for the GH and then changed my mind!
Larders - will I give up growing them now? Er, that partly depends on what they taste like, and possibly whether any neighbours want some too, although I suppose I shouldn't get carried away and start counting my cukes just yet. :unsure:
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Many congratulations, JayG on such lovely looking cucumbers :D
and they will of course taste glorious, you know that :nowink:
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Nice response, JayG!
Of course you've got a success story, and an excellent result too!
I don't really understand why I didn't use some blocks like that, we have loads everywhere..;0)
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Great Stuff!!!.
I think this growing season has also been good for cukes. We've also had success and now having to give away.
Make a great pickle. Sliced cuke, Salt, Sugar and white wine vinegar. Lovely cool from the fridge.
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are they all female cukes?
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Yes, they are.
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There are two plants, and they both produced a single male flower early on alongside the female ones - I pinched them off and left a copy of Germaine Greer's 'The Female Eunoch' in the GH for them to read and inwardly digest - no more male flowers since! ;)
They are delicious by the way, thin-skinned, tasty, juicy without being watery.
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Great result, JayG!
It seems that this year has been pretty good for cuces, and it makes up for all the years when we've sat and watched them die and flop everywhere!
We went down to 'The Patch' last week, with eleven cuces, and on the way down, we just gave them to everyone we met - including strangers!
Made a few friends I suppose...
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Well done JayG here's to many more little cukes. I have grown Marketmore this year along with carmen (I don't seem to have much trouble growing cukes ..... Blows on fingers)
Anyway the Marketmore have tougher skins and the carmen seem to be a bit bland so will be trying a different make next year.
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... the carmen seem to be a bit bland so will be trying a different make next year.
I thought the carmen pretty much supermarket fodder too. Looked the business, thin skinned but do real taste. The Iznik mini-cukes seemed much better.
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I spotted two more little marketmores today, I'm hoping that there is enough good weather for them to reach a reasonable size. That makes 5 and I have picked one.
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Always nice to see continuing efforts being rewarded. :D
Contrary to popular belief, even rotting cucumber stems can recover if you take drastic action immediately ... ie ... don't water anymore at all anywhere near the stems.... If they're in pots, and mine always are, it's always a good idea to find a method of keeping the pots tipped at an angle, so any accidental over watering quickly drains to a hole you've made in the compost with your fingers. Future watering goes straight into that hole and roots under the surface all gravitate to that side of the pot. As I've always used a slightly peaty compost for cucumbers that can hold water too easily, this gravity thing of tipping the pot is the best answer I could come up with. I've saved many cukes on death's door in May this way, and they just go on to produce plenty of fruit with a damaged constricted knarled old exposed stem, almost akin to some sort of hydroponic thing. They really can be quite hardy.