Cucumber 'County Fair'

I garden organically in Asheville, NC. I planted County Fair cucumbers for the first time this year, 2012, a wet summer in the North Caro...Read Morelina mountains, the nationwide drought notwithstanding. The seeds were purchased from garden-diva on eBay, a fast and reliable seller. Started indoors, near 100 percent germination, set out on April 29. Very vigorous plants, with harvest beginning on June 2. Cucumber beetles showed up in late June, unusually early in my experience here, and had heavily infested the plants by the second week in July. Each plant produced on average about 10 to 14 cucumbers per week from mid June through early August, which I typically picked at about 5 to 6 inches in length. A very good pickler but a mediocre slicer; in my opinion, not in the same class as Diva as a slicing cucumber and inferior to Marketmore, which I grew last year. Bacterial wilt was killing individual leaves or short sections of side-vines by the third week in July, but the plants overall remained productive long after my Diva cucumbers had succumbed to wilt, a mosaic virus, and foliar damage from cucumber and Mexican bean beetles. Nearly seedless (I grew them well away from the Divas), firm, high-quality pickling cucumbers, only a little bitterness in some fruit within a half-inch of the stem end. There was a fault in some of the fruit--narrow gaps running lengthwise through the cucumbers, especially toward the stem end--that showed up in mid July and affected about 40 percent of the fruit. Not really a problem unless you need perfect fruit for the state fair or such. I highly recommend County Fair for pickling quality and extraordinary disease resistance.

This cucumber is putting any prolific squash plant I've grown to shame. It is resistant to everything, I have cucumber beetles attacking ...Read Moretomatillo plants 1 foot away with no interest in the cucumbers. This cucumber is a beast & will always have a home in my garden!

If it wasn't for this variety, I wouldn't be able to harvest any cucumbers because of a severe spotted cucumber beetle problem in this ar...Read Moreea. It's the only variety that I've found resistant to bacterial wilt. I've grown it 2004-2006 vertically & put up several quarts of pickles & relish from a 5 foot row. Only other variety that did as well was Gurney's burpless pickler.

Released by Wisconsin-USDA in 1978. A predominantly gynoecious pickling hybrid, parthenocarpic. Hyped as the best home garden pickler. It...Read More has resistance to downy mildew, powdery mildew, scab,and cucumber mosaic virus, with moderate resistance to anthracnose.