My cucumber season

When I planned my cucumber crop for this year I had big visions. Specifically this:

The cucumber greenhouse at Arundel castle, the stuff cucumber dreams are made of

Obviously not having a greenhouse like at the castle, this was always just a dream, but I did think that the more plants I had the more cucumbers I would receive.  Somehow that didn't quite work out, and next year I will be doing things a little differently.

This on the left is one of the only two cucumbers to be produced by the plant that then promptly died

As last year I had a main trough with four plants in, two; the catchily titled M76 and Socrates have been great, producing cucumbers regularly all summer. M76, although a little on the ugly side, is particularly tasty in my opinion. Pipit died the moment it was planted, to be replaced with two babies that randomly popped up.  Me being me dug them out and gave each a pot of their own.  This was a waste tof time and good soil.  If a cucumber seedling doesn't get started nice and early, its not going to do anything.  Not only did neither of them, nor the other baby taht must have been one of my own germinted seeds, actually produce a single cucumber, but they also didn't even grow very big.  A much better use of the pot space would have been to grow salad or more carrots.

Actually there is almost as many cucumbers growing in this picture as
there are in the top greenhouse I now realise!

The other cucumber given a prime spot in the trough produced one delightful vegetable, and then withered to the middle, produced one more and then just dies.  No idea what its problem was but clearly it wasn't happy about something.  I did accidentally snap the base of the stem a little in trying to straighten it to stake it, but it survived long after this happened.

Two of my more prickly customers, but excellently tasty

Overall my shop bought varieties produced more cucumbers than my ones from seed.  No real reason for this as far as I can see.  They were all much the same size and given the same growing conditions, but the shop bought ones just got on with the job better.

This one fancied being a little more bulbous

My two Delta Star which I also grew last year as well produced fairly regularly, although not as many as last year.  Maybe last year was just a better year for growing cucumbers overall? Im not overly fond of this variety, its pretty to look at but has large seeds that choke you mid-way through a sandwhich and tough skins.  And im not a fan of having to peel a cucumber before I eat it.

Two of my cucumbers from seed, one short and fat, one long, presumably two different varieties, just one fancied a little lay in somebody else's pot

I also got one solitary telegraph cucumber, which I think is the variety you can buy in supermarkets.  The plant spent all summer thinking about it and readying itself for the task ahead, and then finally managed one right at the end of the season.

A fine specimen, one of the ones that produced all summer

So overall not a disappointing season, but not necessarily worth the pot space they were honoured with.  It has occurred to me that growing eight or nine varieties of cucumbers might be fun, but nobody needs that many cucumbers, and one cucumber is much like another when you get down to the real flesh of the matter.  I do not have the room to dedicate so much space to my very own cucumber farm, so next year im going to mix it up a bit and grow a larger variety of vegetables and just a few good cucumber plants to keep the salads stocked.

These are two of my tastiest variety, not beautiful but its all in the taste buds