Growing cucumbers is easy enough – it must be. I’ve managed to grow them for the last few years, but mostly in places where I wasn’t allowed plant them like in the flowerbeds of houses we were renting. (Landlords here have been known to refuse to give back house deposits if you destroy their gardens by planting something!)
Cucumber plant in the raised bed.
GROWING CUCUMBERS IN A RAISED BED
Now we are lucky enough to have our own garden I planted from seed and grew them in the raised beds. I thought I’d have a great cucumber harvest this year. Sadly however, the cucumber harvest was small, as were the cucumbers.
Small, fat and tasty.
My main problem with my plan for growing cucumbers this year was that I was so eager to get planting and sowing seeds that I didn’t prepare the beds properly. I didn’t add enough compost or organic materials. Some vegetables didn’t seem to care and grew anyway – others grew but didn’t offer a whole lot to eat – not that I blame them.
Lidl and little.
Still what I did get to eat made growing cucumbers worth my while. They were really crunchy with no hint of the soggy, soft, squishiness you sometimes get from shop bought ones. They looked different too. The shop ones are smooth and long and mine were small and fat. The shop ones were dark green and mine were light. Mine was slightly hairy as well and the hairs a bit stingy and caused a bit of irritation to my skin. (A quick shave and they were fine to eat though.)
There was another big difference between shop cucumber and my own cucumber and that was clear when I sliced them.
Which is which?
Which do you think are the shop ones and which are the homegrown ones?
P.S. If you want to see some details on growing cucumbers there’s some good info on the BBC website.
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