Considering that my focus has not been my garden this summer, I'm quite surprised that I have anything to harvest at all let alone a fairly large harvest of certain items. Three overflowing bags of assorted peppers for the upcoming salsa making project, along with some bags of tomatoes, and a bushel of onions. It will be garden fresh salsa this year. And I only picked half what was out there.
The biggest surprise however were the cucumbers! A neighbour has been giving glowing reports about a variety of cucumber that they love. The Armenian cucumber. I tried a few nurseries before I found one that carried them. I picked up a 4 pack and also grabbed a 2 pack of Japanese cucumbers as well as some pickling ones. I set the plants out on the deck during the day and covered them at night while we prepared the bed for them. The day for planting came. The cucumbers were the last item to plant. We discovered that they had not been watered for two very hot days and they had wilted terribly. Unsure if any would recover, I planted them anyway. Three showed some promise, but in my haste to plant them, I neglected to notice which variety was planted where. So they became mystery cukes. When they were about 8 inches tall we noticed that they were among the plants in the garden being devoured by what we could surmise to be an infestation of earwigs. they were so badly eaten, I assumed they were a lost cause. But weeks later there were two remaining and rather thriving plants. Go figure.
The summer of garden neglect, included, forgetting to water, forgetting to turn off the water, not weeding for weeks at a time until the morning glory had nearly choked the surviving plants completely. Then one day weeks since having checked on the plants, we noticed some strange growing items. Could these enormpus, oddly shaped items be the famous Armenian cucumbers?
Indeed they were. No other cucumber variety had survived, but, these were delicious. I could understand now why the neighbour had been so excited about a cucumber. Not to mention their obvious hardy nature.
Now to figure out some cucumber meals to use up these enormous beauties.... I'm kinda glad we only had 2 plants out of 10 survive.
The biggest surprise however were the cucumbers! A neighbour has been giving glowing reports about a variety of cucumber that they love. The Armenian cucumber. I tried a few nurseries before I found one that carried them. I picked up a 4 pack and also grabbed a 2 pack of Japanese cucumbers as well as some pickling ones. I set the plants out on the deck during the day and covered them at night while we prepared the bed for them. The day for planting came. The cucumbers were the last item to plant. We discovered that they had not been watered for two very hot days and they had wilted terribly. Unsure if any would recover, I planted them anyway. Three showed some promise, but in my haste to plant them, I neglected to notice which variety was planted where. So they became mystery cukes. When they were about 8 inches tall we noticed that they were among the plants in the garden being devoured by what we could surmise to be an infestation of earwigs. they were so badly eaten, I assumed they were a lost cause. But weeks later there were two remaining and rather thriving plants. Go figure.
The summer of garden neglect, included, forgetting to water, forgetting to turn off the water, not weeding for weeks at a time until the morning glory had nearly choked the surviving plants completely. Then one day weeks since having checked on the plants, we noticed some strange growing items. Could these enormpus, oddly shaped items be the famous Armenian cucumbers?
Now to figure out some cucumber meals to use up these enormous beauties.... I'm kinda glad we only had 2 plants out of 10 survive.
