why no cukes? Too early?

Hi there, everyone was so helpful with my tomato problems I thought I would ask. My neighbor planted her cukes 2 week b-4 me and already has large ripe fruit. My plants are huge (they are grown up a trelace) tons of blumes but no fruit to speak of, is it too early? How long till they are mature once the fruit starts?

I am waiting right along with you. Tons of flowers and no sign of fruit. Everything I've read says it's a pollination prob. (we might consider hand pollinating.) I've experimented with 3 or 5 blossoms.. waiting... :) At least our plants are healthy. You and I have that going for us!

What cultivar? some of the older ones put out male blossoms for a couple of weeks before the females. Many of the newer cultivars are parthenocarpic, they need no pollination.

Dill, good question and I bet you hit the nail on the head. I don't know which cultivator. I bought the seedlings at our farmers market and all it said was "Heirloom cucumbers.. " (I neglected to ask further) And what you noted is true; for the first 4 weeks I had predominately male flowers, but there are lots of females now... Thanks for chiming in!

~virginia

Got a question on pollination. I got a variety of cukes called "Double Feature", supposed to be for both pickling and slicing. It was one that has all female flowers, so it says the package "includes a pollinator". Now, I didn't plant the whole pack, but must have gotten the pollinator included, because I have cukes. They do not in any way resemble what the package looks like. I don't like them, and I thought that maybe I'd managed to plant _only_ the pollinators, but no, there are several vines that have all female flowers, and others with a very different looking flower, that includes males.
I'd still like a cucmber that is "dual purpose", but is there such a thing? After this experience I'll probably plant two different kinds. Anyone have favorites?
Thanks,
Margo

All my package said was "burpless cucumbers" it is my first garden and didn't think there was much of a difference. I am holding out hope.. at the very least the plants are great to look at!

I don't know how to determine male and female blossoms, nor much about pollenating, but also have a question...mine were growing like crazy, nice & full on the fence, & tons of blossoms for over 2 weeks.

I checked the vines Tuesday for cukes and found a few small ones and 2 large ones. Couldn't get back out there till today. I picked 50# of mostly large ones. I know I probably missed a few, because of the thickeness of the vines, but I can't imagine that I would miss that many.

We've had rain for 2 days...they didn't really grow that fast, did they? (They get a full 12 hours of sun when it's not raining) There were a lot of vines that were spilling over into the walkways from the bottom of the plants. I cut those off. That isn't going to hurt the plants, is it? I didn't think about it till I was done.

Robin

Sounds like quite a haul! Female blossoms have a tiny fruit betwenn flower and vine, males attach directly to the vine. I don't really know how fast cukes can grow, but I know that mine seem to appear very suddenly sometimes....

Margo

Thanks, that was simple enough! So only female blossoms produce?

Robin

Yup. But the males need to be there :). These males are useful......:)

Margo

Yep but only on the older cultivars. The parthenocarpic cultivars don't need males.The female blossom.

Thanks for the info. Dg is SO educational!

I have the Burpee burpless ones myself...tons of vines and flowers, but only about four small cucumbers so far. I'm still holding out hope that they will perk up and start producing more myself.

Success! (well almost) I checked today and I have about 10 small cukes and one that is about 6 inches long. I had no idea about the male/female blooms. Thanks for the info. Now if I can manage to save my mater plants!

wow, did I speak too soon, I have pulled my first cuke (I was soo happy I ate the whole thing for lunch the same day) now I would say I have at least twenty cukes in various stages of developement, can't wait to have a great big cuke salad! How are the rest of everybodies cukes doing?

Hope you don't mind if I jump in here. This is my first vegetable garden so I'm learning a lot! DG is very helpful. I planted 3 pickling cucumber plants-I guess the parthenocarpic type since they are producing. The vines really took off so I went out with scissors and trimmed them A LOT. It didn't hurt them one bit. I also trimmed off some big leaves so I can find the cucumbers.
I have melon vines taking over the garden and want to trim them too but my husband won't let me touch them (he LOVES watermelons and cantaloupes).
One question I have-does anyone have any simple recipe for preparing cucumbers as a side dish? I know they are healthier just plain but my family likes them dressed up some. I canning and freezing most of them. Thanks!

Hi Motrish,

We've had far too many cucumbers this year so we've had to become creative about how to eat them. One thing I like to do is just slice one up on a plate with some salt, pepper, vinegar and maybe a little olive oil as an appetizer before dinner. The great thing about Cukes is that they're mostly water so there's almost no calories in them. If you just use salt, pepper and vinegar you're ingesting almost zero calories when you eat them.

My favorite thing though (besides pickles) is sour cream cucumbers. Slice them up as thin as you can in a bowl and cover them with salt. Let them sit like 3 hours in the fridge. The salt will work a lot of the water out of them. Pour the water off. Add some chopped onion, the sweeter the better. Then mix in enough sour cream and vinegar to coat them in a sauce and add salt and pepper. Let them sit a bit in the fridge. The longer, the better they taste. Yum.

I haven't found any way of freezing cucumbers because of the high water content.

Jeff

another great cuke recipe that I love is , cucumber sandwiches, I just buy the small deli loaf of pumpernickel or rye, top with veggie cream cheese and a slice of cuke, add a little dill on top to spice it up! And as to the sour cream cukes above, try adding tomato and you can even use italian dressing in place of sour cream.

Thanks Jeff and joyeld1 for those recipes! I'll definitely try them-I'm getting tired of canning.

Jeff-here's a freezerpickle recipe from DG's cookbook and comments from a subscriber who tried it:


http://davesgarden.com/cookbook/viewentry.php?rid=1150

Freezer Pickles
By mystic
Category: Canning and Freezing
Ingredients
2 cups of sugar
2t salt
1 cup vinegar
2t celery seed
7 cups thinly sliced cucumbers
1 cup sliced onions
1 cup chopped bell pepper

Instructions
Mix together the sugar, salt, vinegar and celery seed.
Pour over the vegetables. Mix well and let soak overnight.
The next day put in containers and freeze.Leave them in the freezer at least 2 days before you eat. Cucumbers stay crisp.


A DG subscriber who tried the recipe:
I did make it, and I still have many containers of them in my freezer. It is good, but it isn't the same as canned pickles or fresh pickles. Has it's own taste and texture. While it's crisp, it's also has a little bit of a water-logged texture. Still good though, and I'll make them again.

Take Care - Dorie