CUCUMBERS AN ALL AMERICAN VEGETABLE SO LOVED BY MANY

Ah, the cucumber, especially the slicers!  This is what our household waits for more than any other fruit/vegetable other than the tomatoes.  This warm weather vegetable is a member of the Gourd Family...sounds strange to me but that is what the science says.  Cucumbers originated in India, believe it or not.  How they got here in Minnesota I will never know.  Goes to show that we are all connected and our world is very diverse.

Cucumbers need to be planted when the soil and environment is warm, otherwise the plant freezes easily with any frost or light freezing.  Last year, my squash overgrew into my cucumbers and I just didn't get any cucumbers so I decided to plant a mid summer crop.  Just when they were flowering we had a freeze, albeit a light freeze, and they all died.  So.....remember to plant early in summer when the weather is warm.

An interesting fact about cucumbers is that most of them produce both male and female flowers and require pollination by bees.  My cucumber plants from seeds and from plants were slow to grow and even flower.  This year, I am not seeing very many bees so that may have been a factor in their bearing their fruit.

In our family we prefer the slicers and eat in salads and even in plain ole "cucumber" sandwiches with miracle whip!   Yummy.  Often I'll add radishes and tomatoes in my sandwich from the garden.  Best sandwich ever! 
Second favorite is "vinegar cucumbers" with a few onions...slice the cucumbers, add diced onions or  not,  fill the jar up with vinegar, let them sit on the counter top for a few days or so and they are great!

Cucumbers are "heavy feeders" and require a good dose of compost mixed in with the soil before planting and need a  "side dressing" of fertilizer every 2-3 weeks.   They also need lots of water during the fruit bear period, then you can cut back to the one inch per week of watering.  I also always plant my seeds or seedlings in hills of 2-3 plants and try to plant next to a wire fence or my tornado fence as cucumbers are climbers.  Helps create good air flow around the plants as they grow up.

We used to plant "picklers", smaller cucumbers and canned them as pickles.  As my household is a household of two,  pickles just didn't get eaten and I usually gave the pickles away as gift.  I stopped planting cucumbers for pickling.  My children loved them when they were young, many a moon ago. 

Though mouth watering in a salad or a sandwich, cucumbers are not a nutritious vegetable.  They are 95% water and low in calories and have a small amount of Vitamin C,  folate and potassium.  Regardless, enjoy.

Cucumber flower