This year I am growing 4 types of cucumbers and I have to say I’m enjoying the experience of having different varieties. In the past I’ve usually just grown the Lebanese types (the short Lebanese ones – about 10cm long, rather than the really long ones). But this year I have also included Lemon, Summer Dance and Catalina Pickling varieties. Thank you to Bek for the Lemon & Summer Dance seeds. Funnily enough my other 3 varieties are outperforming the Lebanese this year. We’ve had about 800g of Lebanese from three (not very vigorous – in fact I suspect at least one may have died…) vines. Compare that with 1.8kg of Lemon Cucumbers and probably that again in set fruit which is ripening at the moment from one vine. 1.6kg from the 2 Summer Dance vines and a lovely 4.4kg from the Catalina Pickling but that is 4 (possibly 6) vines.
When you add all the varieties together I do have a lot of cucumber in the house most of the time. (Especially as mum and dad insist on giving me a bag of their very vigorous Lebanese cucumbers every time I see them.)
I’ve been busy turning a lot of the cucumbers into Bread & Butter cucumbers as well as pickling some as gherkins, Miss 6 eats a lot of them dressed with salt, but that still leaves a lot to make salad with.
Salads like this one:
Cucumbers and onion dressed in a soy sauce, sugar, garlic, ginger, rice vinegar and sesame oil dressing. (I also added chilli but only after the kids had taken theirs). Anyway its a great combination and one that I will be eating again, and again, and again – well at least for as long as the cucumbers keep producing that is.
I’m sharing this post as part of Veggiegobblers Thursday Garden Gobbles.
Do the varieties have a different taste or are better for certain ways of preparing or do they just look different?
Yes, although I think different texture is probably more accurate than taste per se. The Summer Dance are really, really crisp. The Lemon are pretty crisp but have a tougher skin. The skin on the Lebanese is a lot less tough and their dimensions make them really good for slicing. The pickling ones have those knobbly bits and are really fleshy when picked young.
Isn’t it funny how the same crop (variety even) can perform so differently in different years? There are just so many variables to get right! My Lebanese cucumbers did well last year after a shaky start, so I hope that was not just a one-off.
I think i planted mine too early and didn’t feed or mulch sufficiently. I bought my Lebanese ones as seedlings, the others I grew from seed and I suspect the Lebanese ones had been brought on too early and they just didn’t like being transplanted.
Ooohhh…that salad sounds delicious! I hope we have enough cukes in the coming season to make a few of these meals 🙂
I LOVE cucumber salad. So yummy.
I just found your blog and am enjoying reading through some of your posts! I grew Lemon cukes for the first time last year and fell in love with them. They have such a nice flavor – a little seedy if they got too ripe, but not a bit of bitterness!
Glad you found me and thankyou for leaving a comment. This is my first year growing them and I am really appreciating them I have to say.
Oh yum, I can’t wait until I can grow cucumbers again! Maybe I’ll try the lemon ones again, it’s been years since the last time I grew them.
I’ve really enjoyed them – nice and crunchy, although the skin is a little tough for my liking. They are my daughters favourite though so will definitely be planted again.
We’re in the throes of craving a fresh, crunchy salad like this! While I have no problem figuring out what to do with the onslaught of summer squash, cucumbers do seem to reproduce faster than we can use them…
Unless you really like pickles i can see how that could and would happen – my parents have 6 plants and its probably 4 more than they really needed.
Darn it, my cukes have been pretty disappointing this year, certainly not enough to warrant a cucumber only salad. But boy that looks and sounds delicious.
I reckon its been a bit dry for them this year. The only reason I think mine did well is that I have done a lot of watering (with a bill to prove it).
A lovely cucumber harvest – I hope mine do better this summer than last, a grand total of 1. They’d better grow well, so that I can try your salad!
I would think so – after all your deserve to have a nice warm summer after last year.
Delicious! I do a similar salad but without the onion or soy. Or just munch them plain as I walk around the garden…
I have to confess I need a bit of salt on mine.
What a great salad using homegrown veggies. You’ve got some beautiful cucumbers there. I always wish I have the space in my yard to grow more vegetables. Can’t wait what you’re going to harvest next.
Thanks Amy, Space is always an issue in suburban garden isn’t it? Each year i try to cram too much in and some of the plants suffer as a result. Survival of the fittest I guess…
I’m growing Lemon cucumber this year. I’ve grown it once before and, to be honest, I wasn’t that keen on it, but I thought I’d give it another chance this year.
Based on my fairly limited experience i think the key is the pick them pretty young – they do seem to get pretty tough skinned and seedy when they get older. I have tried to get Miss 6 to describe what she likes about them but so far she has not been particularly forthcoming.
Wow, that’s a lot of cucumbers! And your salad is very much like one we make Love the salty taste on the cucumbers.
Wow I am green with envy salivating looking at your cucumbers.
The cucurbits suffered so much here attacked by the cucumber beetles.
No mercy from the pest and I have never encountered this in Adelaide.
They ate all the leaves up.
Now that’s a pest I have no desire to encounter.