I pulled out most of my cucumber plants yesterday. I left in two and both were Summer Dance. They seem to be more resistant to Powdery Mildew than Catalina Pickling, Lebanese and the Lemon varieties that I also grew this year. This is just one of the attractions of this really lovely variety.
Although they were not the most prolific variety I grew this year (that honour must surely go to the ridiculously abundant Lemon) they were definitely worth devoting garden space to. As this was my first year growing them my impressions of them are entirely based on this (rather warm) years experiences. Summer Dance were amongst the first plants to produce this year and they will also be the last. Although they didn’t produce large volumes at any given time they have averaged 2 or 3 good quality fruit per plant per week for the past 3 months.
The fruit are long (about 25-30cm) green and really, really crisp.
They have thick flesh without too many seeds and are lovely to eat fresh. I suspect they would make lovely pickles too but as I mixed all my varieties when I made them this year I’m not sure which is which.
I sowed the seed in late August and they commenced fruiting at the end of December. I grew two plants and both were in fairly sheltered positions nestled behind other plants. The part of the bed they are in gets about 6-7 hours sun per day but the plants were shaded by other crops. I’m not sure if they would have produced more had they got more sun or produced less without the protection offered by other crops.
I will definitely grow this variety again next year.
I have created a page (above, just below the header) with an Index of all the Spotlights to date. I will add links to any new posts below and in next weeks post as well as ensuring they appear in the Index. Let me know if you write one by leaving a comment.
New Spotlights last week were:
Baby Blue Jade Corn – Kebun Malay-Kadazan Girls
Giant Winter Spinach – Our Happy Acres
Prosperosa Eggplant – Beks Backyard
And new for this week:
Spotted Trout Lettuce – Our Happy Acres
Greek Gigante Beans – From Seed to Table
Tomatoes – City Garden, Country Garden
Summer Dance does well here too, except for last year when the deer kept eating the vines. This year I will grow it where it is protected by my new fencing. It’s a great burpless type too. I spotlighted another lettuce this week, Spotted Trout. It starred in our dinner last night.
Now deer are something I’m quite glad I don’t have to contend with…although they are beautiful.
I wonder whether we will do well again with cucumbers this year?
I hope my cucumbers will do as well as yours! In our current weather conditions (still minus 5C most nights) it’s hard to imagine being able to grow cucumbers in my garden without artificial heating… This year I’m going with two Lebanese varieties – “Iznik F1” which did well for me last year, and “Melen F1”.
I really like the Lebanese varieties as well, I grew some with the imaginative name: “Lebanese”.
I know it’s Sunday morning in your part of the world, but it’s mid-day Saturday here so I guess technically I’m not late with my Saturday Spotlight post about Greek Gigante beans. 🙂
Summer Dance looks like it could be a good variety for my garden. Powdery mildew is always a big problem in my climate so a resistant variety is always good. And is sounds like a really good fresh eating cucumber. I don’t mind a modest producer because I don’t want too many at one time.
Loved you Gigante bean post. I know what you mean about modest producer, a mountain of cucumbers can be quite a daunting prospect at times.
Dreaming of a summer warm enough to grow cucumbers! Summer dance sound like a good choice, reliable and not too prolific.
I really enjoyed them.
Another great Spotlight, and you beat me to it to let you know I’d posted one on tomatoes! 😉
Were all the cucumber varieties you grew this year climbing types? How did you trellis them? I tried some bush cucumbers as part of my crop, but they really weren’t worth the space they took up. The climbing ones did much better.
They were all vine types and I tend to trellis then by running old pantyhose between tomato stakes and then feeding the growing vine between the pantyhose which retains enough elasticity to support the growing plants. I posted on it at some point (quite a while ago) http://suburbantomato.com/2011/10/tightly-held-cucumbers/ if you want to have a look.
That looks like a great way to do it, I might use it next year. Do you do the same with peas?
I haven’t tried it with peas but then I haven’t successfully grown peas recently either. I think I might give it a try though.
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