My Fall Cucumber Field Pic

Stimw · Oct 12, 2013

I planted mid August and started picking last week.
Two weeks ago I had blooms but no Bees. Then we had two windy days and the Bees showed up!!
When the Bees are there I can go out there are hear the whole field humming.
Around here they are selling Cucumbers for $.78 a piece in the stores!! And they don't compare to fresh picked!
Too bad I just give away what I can't eat.

DFB · Oct 12, 2013

Nice...

Make pickles?

oosik · Oct 13, 2013

Wow! That's a beautiful patch. Used to grow cukes & dill. Made the greatest pickles ever tasted. Used the leaves off the grapes to give tartness to the pickle brine. After all the pickles were finished & bottled we put string beans and baby onions in the brine crocks. There is nothing as tasty as your own pickled baby onion in a martini.

Lou66 · Oct 13, 2013

I give mine away also,, just don't feel right selling to friends and family.. beside that the joy of growing things.. nice looking garden.. Lou

Stimw · Oct 13, 2013

It's too bad I don't like pickles.
I have over a dozen friends and neighbors that will take all that I will give them.
A couple years ago in a patch this size I picked 576 cucumbers! I was getting 2- 5 gal buckets every other day.
I was hanging bags of them on the mailbox for the mailman, taking them up to the firehouse for the firemen, I even gave two bags of them to two guys that loaded a new Serta Mattress and Box Spring on my PU at Big Lots!!

DFB · Oct 13, 2013

Thats the thing with cukes...when they set and pollinate its usually all or nothing. One season I had maybe 200 ft of cucumbers. I was dumping the culls by the wheelbarrow full over the bank wishing I had the time to make them into pickles and sell them at a later date!

jimmyj · Oct 14, 2013

mmmm, cucumbers and pickles....mmmmmmmmm

jinman · Oct 14, 2013

That's a beautiful patch of cucumbers, Stimw. I know exactly what you mean about bees. The ground just sings and almost vibrates when they are active in the early morning. However, I sure wish I had a YouTube video of you picking cucumbers. With that canopy of leaves, I want to see how you find them and then how you pick the ones in the middle without stomping on the plants. You could call your video "Harvest Dance" and maybe it would go viral.

Stimw · Oct 14, 2013

jinman said:
That's a beautiful patch of cucumbers, Stimw. I know exactly what you mean about bees. The ground just sings and almost vibrates when they are active in the early morning. However, I sure wish I had a YouTube video of you picking cucumbers. With that canopy of leaves, I want to see how you find them and then how you pick the ones in the middle without stomping on the plants. You could call your video "Harvest Dance" and maybe it would go viral.

It's simple, I have a 4' piece of 1/2" PVC pipe that I use to part the leaves to see the cucumbers.
It also keeps me from getting stung and if by chance a Rattle-tooth-copper-moccasin is hiding in there I will see it too!
I can part the vines here and there to establish places to step, I use the pipe also put down for balance. I haven't picked that many yet to have the clearings.
They will keep producing until we get a frost sometime mid to late November.