Because the climate heats up, now’s the proper time to develop and decide cucumbers! With these straightforward suggestions and tips, you’ll be ready to efficiently harvest and retailer the cucumbers 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 net.
The Resilient Cucumber
Cucumbers are a really fast-growing crop. When grown shortly at excessive temperatures, they will 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 sizzling situations, mature vegetation can develop 4 inches (10 cm) or extra in a day. So long as they’re saved effectively watered, cucumbers vegetation can tolerate hotter temperatures than tomatoes.
The quick development fee means cucumbers might 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 every week. Small-fruited varieties like cocktail cucumbers might 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 decided each by selection and by how briskly the vegetation 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 develop into overmature. There may be 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 selecting a ripe tomato or pepper (pores and skin has modified coloration, seeds are mature) and selecting a cucumber (based mostly on dimension, not ripeness; seeds shouldn’t be mature if current in any respect). In greenhouse cukes, the matter may be confused, since they’re parthe-nocarpic and gynoecious and don’t set seed. However we are able to nonetheless say that overmaturity corresponds to the stage of maturity in a cucumber when it will in any other case have arduous 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, based mostly on grower desire, purchaser desire, and stage of development. Cucumber vegetation in a extra generative stage will have a tendency to supply 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 ultimate 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 taking place at that time.
Since protected tradition cucumbers are seedless, overmaturity just isn’t as a lot of an issue as in subject cucumbers, the place cukes will start to have arduous 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.
If you’re rising a brand new selection and are uncertain the place the candy spot of maturity is, undermature cukes are likely 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 once they now not have pointy ends and are cylindrical, however earlier than their form has begun to inflate. In the end, there may be some discretion in when to choose cucumbers, so present employees examples of what you need them to choose and never decide.
Submit-Harvest: Storing Cucumbers
It’s vital to get cucumbers out of the solar as quickly as doable, since their darkish pores and skin absorbs plenty of warmth the longer they’re omitted. Retailer cucumbers at 55 to 57°F (13–14°C), and at 95 p.c humidity.
So long as they’re held beneath perfect post-harvest situations 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 must be used.
Cucumber Wrapping and Packaging
Determine 10.10. A younger crop of lengthy European greenhouse cucumbers grown umbrella-style. The vegetation have simply reached the highest wire, which is 6 to 7 ft (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 pace up the method. The only of those may be loaded with a big roll of plastic wrap, with a sizzling wire to chop it. An individual stands in entrance of the machine and wraps every cucumber, and once they raise 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 rather more costly than the opposite choices.
Most American slicer and pickling varieties 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 kind of dehydration safety, similar to lengthy Europeans.
This packaging may additionally be helpful to maintain the cucumbers collectively in a marketable unit, for the reason that smaller varieties are often bought in teams slightly than by the piece or the pound. Shrink-wrapping cocktail or snack cucumbers to a small cardboard tray is a standard 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 generally the bag can fog up, making the cucumbers arduous to see.
Really useful Reads
Attending to the Root: Rising & Harvesting Carrots
The way to Harvest, Retailer, and Treatment Squash