Cucumbers (Boston Pickling)

From Bonnie Plants: https://bonnieplants.com/product/boston-pickling-cucumber/

Per website: matures in 55 days

Timeline (29 days to first harvest):

- 5/26/20: Purchased

- 6/6/2020: Transferred to larger container

- 6/10/20: First immature flowers appeared

- 6/13/20: First male flower bloomed

- 6/18/20: First female flower opened - pollinated

- 6/24/20: First cucumber harvested

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

- Get a legitimate trellis. Not the rickety Daiso one that sways in the wind. A real one from Lowe's or Home depot. The big arch one.

- You will need a bigger container. I ended up using a 56 qt Sterilite container with drainage holes drilled into it. $5 from Target! 20+ inches of growing room.

- Separate the seedlings or branches so that they're not tangled. I thought if it came all in one container that meant...keep it all together. Little did I know each of these was a cucumber plant.

- Almost forgot this one...do NOT pluck suckers off. Entirely possible that I did this wrong, but when I started doing this I actually went without cucumbers for a good two weeks until I got lazy and stopped. Then lo and behold, my cucumbers came back.

These were honestly pretty successful and still did pretty good in the TX triple digit heat. I think we got 30+ cucumbers from them, and they were always a nice quick healthy snack. Probably will still do these smaller pickling cucumbers next year, rather then the big long cucumbers. We'll see!

But look at how cute these were when I first got them! I think it was like $3.50? or $3.99? Purchased 5/26/2020.

Yep these guys were initially planted in my trusty $1.50 Daiso container...and you can see how floppy they were so instantly put some supports in.

And the vines grow QUICK. I started running out of supports. And then it was just this gigantic tall ladder that swayed everywhere in the wind...and I tried putting bricks under it...and sigh. Thus - legitimate arch trellis next year.

My garden used to be so quaint and tiny. LOL how quickly that changed and what an overgrown mess it became. June 6 they went into the Sterilite containers...and that cucumber vine just went crazy. Those two pictures are FOUR DAYS APART...and it grew twice in size.

Side note: I love cute little cucumber tendrils!

Time for some cute little cucumber flowers - first ones grew on June 10 and bloomed June 13! The male ones (no mini cucumber behind it) appeared maybe...a week before I got female flowers? Like I said before, DO NOT PLUCK THE "SUCKERS" OFF. JUST LET THEM GROW.

And here's the behemoth! It grew to this point and I physically cold not make the trellis any taller. The first one, its leaning heavily so in the second one I added the bricks because it kept blowing over. This is the start of my jungle lol. And...having to prop up the cucumber against a chair, tying it to the chair...and having the vines start growing on the other side of the trellis.

I also thought I saw some white spots and powdery mildew, so started spraying with neem oil. Honestly I think this variety is bred to be fairly resistant to powdery mildew. Maybe it was just cucumber beetles or some other pest. The leaves towards the bottom did eventually turn yellow and blech and died, but the other parts of the cucumber kept going. So I guess something I was doing was working.

(Another note: spray neem oil at night...can damage the leaves when exposed to the sun).

Then the ultimate gratification! Pollinated my first cucumber around June 18, and watched it grow every day until it was harvested on June 24! You bet I measured that first one every day, multiple times a day while agonizing over when to harvest it!

Look at this crazy plant! This was about a month since it had put it in the Sterilite container.

We had some funky looking cucumbers, and some of them were more bitter, but that's ok. Now that the summer is over and I let the cucumber plant wither and die, I'm missing having these fresh cucumbers all the time!

Overall, happy that this guy produced about 30 cucumbers and how successful it was!

-CEC