Because the climate heats up, now’s the proper time to develop and decide cucumbers! With these simple ideas and methods, you’ll be ready to efficiently harvest and retailer the cucumbers you develop till they’re able to eat.
Until in any other case famous, all pictures copyright © 2017 by Andrew Mefferd.
The next is an excerpt from The Greenhouse and Hoophouse Grower’s Handbook by Andrew Mefferd. It has been tailored for the online.
The Resilient Cucumber
Cucumbers are a really fast-growing crop. When grown shortly at excessive temperatures, they’ll take as little as twenty-one days to go from seed to transplant stage, and one other twenty-one days to go from transplant to first harvest. Below scorching circumstances, mature crops can develop 4 inches (10 cm) or extra in a day. So long as they’re saved effectively watered, cucumbers crops can tolerate hotter temperatures than tomatoes.
The quick development fee means cucumbers could require extra frequent consideration than the opposite vining/fruiting crops. During times of quick development, cukes might have pruning or trellising greater than as soon as per week. Small-fruited varieties like cocktail cucumbers could have to be picked as soon as a day or extra to maintain them from getting too huge.
Harvesting Cucumbers
Determine 10.8. A pickling cucumber being grown by the high- wire (single-leader) methodology within the writer’s hoophouse.
Frequency of harvest in cucumbers is set each by selection and by how briskly the crops are rising. The objective of cucumber harvest is to choose the cucumbers as soon as they’ve reached a minimal dimension and diploma of maturity, earlier than they’ve change into overmature. There’s some latitude in when to choose cucumbers, since they’re picked when horticulturally mature, not botanically mature (in different phrases, ripe).
Contemplate the distinction between choosing a ripe tomato or pepper (pores and skin has modified shade, seeds are mature) and choosing a cucumber (primarily based on dimension, not ripeness; seeds shouldn’t be mature if current in any respect). In greenhouse cukes, the matter might be confused, since they’re parthe-nocarpic and gynoecious and don’t set seed. However we will nonetheless say that overmaturity corresponds to the stage of maturity in a cucumber when it could in any other case have onerous seed. This definition nonetheless permits for some latitude in when to reap.
A selected selection could also be harvested barely bigger or smaller, as soon as it has reached horticultural maturity, primarily based on grower choice, purchaser choice, and stage of development. Cucumber crops in a extra generative stage will have a tendency to provide longer, bigger fruits.
Cucumber Maturity
Overmaturity in cucumbers corresponds to bloating. It’s because cucumbers develop to a sure size earlier than doing most of their diameter growth. So an overmature cucumber is one which has reached its remaining size and elevated an excessive amount of in diameter. You need to decide cucumbers on the desired size, earlier than they’ve begun bloating, as a result of taste will begin happening at that time.
Since protected tradition cucumbers are seedless, overmaturity isn’t as a lot of an issue as in discipline cucumbers, the place cukes will start to have onerous seed when picked overmature. However the very best consuming high quality in cucumbers comes after the cuke has stuffed out and reached its optimum size, and earlier than it has began to bloat.
In case you are rising a brand new selection and are uncertain the place the candy spot of maturity is, undermature cukes are inclined to look barely angular as a result of they haven’t stuffed out utterly but, like an underinflated balloon. And an overmature cuke may have stopped rising in size and began increasing outward solely. Most cukes are on the proper diameter after they not have pointy ends and are cylindrical, however earlier than their form has begun to inflate. Finally, there may be some discretion in when to choose cucumbers, so present staff examples of what you need them to choose and never decide.
Publish-Harvest: Storing Cucumbers
It’s necessary to get cucumbers out of the solar as quickly as attainable, since their darkish pores and skin absorbs lots of warmth the longer they’re ignored. Retailer cucumbers at 55 to 57°F (13–14°C), and at 95 p.c humidity.
So long as they’re held underneath perfect post-harvest circumstances for only some days till sale, you possibly can retail lengthy European cucumbers or put them in a CSA field with out shrink-wrapping. For a produce gross sales chain for much longer than that, or wholesaling the place dealing with is out of your management, shrink-wrapping ought to be used.
Cucumber Wrapping and Packaging
Determine 10.10. A younger crop of lengthy European greenhouse cucumbers grown umbrella-style. The crops have simply reached the highest wire, which is 6 to 7 toes (1.8–2.1 m) excessive, and are quickly to be topped to let the laterals develop.
On a really small scale, stretchy plastic wrap could also be used to wrap the cukes, with the ends twisted to seal in moisture. On a medium scale, machines can be found that can velocity up the method. The only of those might be loaded with a big roll of plastic wrap, with a scorching wire to chop it. An individual stands in entrance of the machine and wraps every cucumber, and after they carry the wrapped cucumber the new wire cuts the plastic.
On a bigger scale, cucumbers are put right into a free tube of plastic wrap after which despatched on a conveyor belt by a heater, which shrinks the wrap to suit the cucumber. These have a really excessive output and are way more costly than the opposite choices.
Most American slicer and pickling sorts don’t want shrink-wrapping, as a result of their skins are thick sufficient to forestall dehydration. A lot of the mini/midi/cocktail thin-skinned cucumbers can profit from some sort of dehydration safety, identical to lengthy Europeans.
This packaging can also be helpful to maintain the cucumbers collectively in a marketable unit, for the reason that smaller sorts are normally bought in teams somewhat than by the piece or the pound. Shrink-wrapping cocktail or snack cucumbers to a small cardboard tray is a typical trade methodology that additionally has good presentation. Bagging small-fruited cukes on the market could also be a extra sensible choice for smaller growers. The disadvantage is that typically the bag can fog up, making the cucumbers onerous to see.
Beneficial Reads
Attending to the Root: Rising & Harvesting Carrots
Methods to Harvest, Retailer, and Remedy Squash