Where’s my cucumber!
When my third-grade teacher Mrs. Alexander taught us about 1st century Roman Emperor Tiberius, she mentioned he insisted on having fresh cucumbers every day. Because he was a ruthless tyrant, his gardeners were motivated to create mobile carts bearing cucumbers plants which they wheeled around following the sun, and in colder weather they fashioned first-century cold frames to protect them. Out of tyranny comes cucumbers.
I also like cucumbers, but in colder weather I eat pickles. I’ve grown dozens of cucumber varieties from all over the world, and noticed they work together seamlessly when it’s time to make pickles. I usually make a few jars with my dad’s very simple recipe, then try others because every culture is represented in its pickles. I also have my own recipes, but I don’t follow any of them closely.
Scholars say the earliest cucumbers, which probably originated in northern India around 12,000 B.C., were small and bitter, but clever humans along the way bred sweeter ones. Mine still get bitter if I don’t water enough or pay attention to the soil.
There are pickling or slicing cucumbers. I’ve made pickles with all kinds of cucumbers, but the ones called “pickling” are maybe five inches long when they are at their peak and ready for harvest. They are usually green with maybe yellow washes. There’s a pale yellow-to-white variety called Bootheby’s Blonde, and a gherkin is an immature fruit from one type of pickler.
Slicing pickles, usually a darker green, can also be pickled. There are slicing varieties from Japan up to two feet long and an inch or so in diameter. Egypt has a long skinny one, and a similar kind was bred in England for greenhouses. Armenian yard-long cucumbers are ribbed, a bit plumper but a lighter green color. Try them. You’ll like them.
Poona Kheera is a Mideast variety which has a potato-color peel and plump shape but the texture of a jicama. Lemon cucumbers look like… you guessed it – rum cake! No, no, careful breeders in the 19th century carefully bred and rebred especially round and yellow cucumbers for some reason, and as a result, gardeners can grow lemon-shaped cucumbers in Carroll County gardens right now. I’m in Madison, so here also. There is a round apple-shaped variety from New Zealand and one from Croatia also lemon-shaped but smooth and white. The world is awash with cucumber varieties.
The best cucumbers come from well-prepared soil because they are heavy feeders. Got any compost? Know somebody with a horse? At this point in the season, fresh cucumbers are beginning to pile up in the vegetable crisper, so the soil where they grew might need a mid-season boost.
Mrs. Alexander recommended all 3rd graders should add moderate amounts of phosphorus and potassium when cucumbers begin bearing. “Potassium and phosphorus from wood ash is good for us,” she would sing, and we sang it with her. She also believed in adding a dash of Epsom salts for the magnesium.
Potassium aids root development and vine growth for healthy fruit. Phosphorus facilitates the flow of energy from the roots through the vines to the flowers and fruit. Nitrogen stimulates leaf growth, but too much takes away from forming flowers and cucumbers. Magnesium assists with chlorophyll build-up and healthy fruit development, and then there is calcium and half the periodic table all together joining hands to make nice cucumbers.
The key, though, is getting the bed in good shape in spring before the seeds go in.
And I know you are wondering… according to a University of Missouri website, the largest cucumber on record was 67 inches long and weighed 154 pounds – in other words, bigger than me.