The Best Cucumbers

It is well worth your money to buy the best cucumbers varieties you can find. I will pay 5 times the price for a standard variety to get excellent yield and disease resistance. You won''t find the best varieties in the local green houses because the make more money if they use cheap seed.

I planted cucumbers tonight. Just starting with one row about 500 feet long. I'll plant another in about a month. We space the plants about 6 inches apart.

One of the varieties I like for Southern Minnesota is...

Farmers Market Cucumber Salad with Honey-Lime and Yogurt Dressing

One of the tastes of summer is cucumbers and this salad rocks with a Greek yogurt based dressing. Perfect for diner or lunch.

Sweet Pickles - Bread & Butter

I have often wondered why those nice crunchy sweet pickle slices are called bread and butter pickles. Maybe it is obvious to everyone else, bread and butter has the connotation of sandwiches, so I guess it is a sandwich pickle vs. a hamburger pickle.

So I did a little research on this.

Turns out the sandwich part is a good guess. These pickles were developed during the Great Depression when food was scarce and cucumbers were plentiful. The pickles could be preserved for a time of winter scarcity. Cucumber sandwiches were a frequent healthy meal during the off season when garden vegetables were not available but bread and butter were plentiful.

Here is a great recipe that I have made several times and have been fine tuning the approach and seasonings. The first time I made it we ate two jars in the first day.

You can make these two different ways one is without canning call refrigerator pickles and the second by using a water bath to heat and seal the jars. You can also salt the cucumbers for a more crispy pickle or use them unsalted if you want a low salt alternative.

Plants That Do Well Together in Pots

There are a number of combinations of garden plants that do well together in pots. Here are 10 combinations:

1. Sunflower, squash and peas. Similar to the three sisters that were planted by the native Americas when the Europeans first settled in America.
2. Two peppers do well in pots. They also do well planted together in the garden.
3. Combinations of herbs, such as Basil, Rosemary and Thyme.
4. Edible flowers such as pansies work well with shorter herbs.

A Tale of Two Cucumbers

It was the best of cucumbers, it was the worst of cucumbers...if Charles Dickens were to write a garden novel he might start it this way. Instead you just have me and my lowly experiences.

I have tried many different cucumbers over the years. I started off with some of the older heirloom varieties thinking they would be vastly superior. Well in this case the heirlooms were pretty dismal and the hybrids were very superior ("surely the best of times", says Dr. McCoy to Captain Kirk on his birthday). So much so that you can get three times the yield from the best cucumbers. One of my favorite varieties for this area of Minnesota is General Lee. It is a great slicing cucumber that is sweet and crunchy.

We are trying a new cucumber this year, one of the mini-cucumber varieties, that are picked about 2/3 of the size of the regular cucumbers. They are very thin-skinned, seedless, sweet and crunchy. They are parthenocarpic (don't need to be pollinated) and genocious (all female flowers) for much higher yields.

You need to plant several times a season for a continuous supply. We are planting the fall cucumbers now in the space vacated by harvested carrots, beets, garlic and onions. We also planted some fall broccoli this week. Yea! for fall gardening.