I began a vegetable garden. This is my first time. I was watering it the other day and saw "something" in the garden laying on the ground next to some leaves. I went in the house to get my glasses....It was a cucumber!!!! I stood there LOL at myself. I know some of you are sitting at your computer now laughing at me...don't blame you a bit.

So, how do I know when the cucumber is ready to be picked? Thanks in advance.

Quietly....LOL

-- quietly (quietly@preparing.com), July 05, 1999

Answers

Quietly

It depends upon the type of cuke it is. Look at the picture of the packet the seeds came in. Cukes can be harvested over a broad range of time but it better to be a bit early.

Zuchini and summer squash can be harvested when young and small which is prefered since later the seeds become to big and the skin tough.

Tomatos - wait until they are 'lamost' ripe red, pick and set aside till ripe. If they ripen completely on the vine they will spoil quickly.

Have fun. Its an adventure!

-- ..- .. - (dit@dot.dash), July 05, 1999.

Quietly:

I can relate completely. I started a garden this year and (as related in a thread long ago), rains washed all the seeds around the plot and tore down the markers. I'd assumed that the vining plant with the huge leaves was the watermelon and that the one with the small leaves was the cucumber. My only correct guess was the medium- sized leaf plant as the cantaloupe.

Like you, I went out to check, and green balls were growing on my cucumber plants and pickle-type things growing on my watermelon plants. I waited until the cucumbers were 9" long (per the instructions on the seed pack) and picked them. They still had some pimples on them, and were more yellow in color than the deep green on the seed packet. I like to eat them raw, so sliced some. They were a bit bitter, and almost totally devoid of seeds. I'm letting the others grow longer, thinking that I perhaps picked the first ones too early. Of course the seed packet states not to allow to grow to ripeness. Why not? I don't know.

I'm sure we'll both get many more laughs out of our first gardens.

-- Anita (spoonera@msn.com), July 05, 1999.

I don't know anything about cukes, but as a beginning gardener you may or not know that a good way to get a huge amount of food from your garden is to have zuccini. The main technical problem with zuccini is to have a variety of good recipies so you won't get tired of eating your huge supply.

-- Peter Errington (petere@ricochet.net), July 05, 1999.

And if you get tired of eating your huge supply:

Find an unlocked car in a parking lot. Fill back seat.

-- itgrows (boy@doesit.ever), July 05, 1999.

If you planted non-hybrids let a few of your nicest cukes squash whatever get really, really ripe. Not for eating but seed saving. Cukes will get large and yellow- can even go past to a little squishy for purposes of seed saving. Clean, lable and toss in paper lunch sack for next year.

EC

-- EC (JHnck1776@aol.com), July 05, 1999.

Useful thread: When is It Ripe? I'm pretty sure it includes cucumbers, different fruits too.

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000n3s

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), July 05, 1999.

LOL... that's priceless, quietly.

Constantly amazed at how plants can "morph" overnight.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), July 05, 1999.

I'm not laughing at you quietly! I grew cucumbers this year for the first time, too. I've always grown tomatoes, etc., but this is my first year for cukes. We've really enjoyed them.

Anita, if your cucumbers were bitter, you didn't pick them soon enough. I've been experimenting with mine. I pick them when they are about 6" long. They still have little "bumps" on them. I left some on the vine to see if they would get bigger. They didn't, and they were a little bitter. The ones picked earlier were sweet. It has been an interesting experience, the vines are growing everywhere and attaching themselves to everything! :-)

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), July 05, 1999.

Thank you all for the responses and tips! Gardening can is a full time job! I planted squash too and corn. I'll have to try zuchnni (sp). Although I have tomato seeds, I miss the time to plant them. I guess I better start reading about fall planting. Seems like I should be able to plant year round, being in Houston. Thanks again

-- quietly (quietly@preparing.com), July 05, 1999.

Quietly, go ahead and plant a few tomato seeds. Now, ask your friends who work in places like hospitals to scour for big pieces of bubble wrap! When cold weather threatens temporarily, wrap your tomato plants completely in bubble wrap. I'm in Durham, NC, and nursed three tomato plants through to early Feb or close to it using this method. I only quit then because I got tired of running outside and wrapping the things every time the temp threatened to go below high thirties.

Hint: Burpee's Longkeeper and Winter Red tomato seeds produce fruit that keeps for a long time. The first year I tried Longkeepers I was eating tomatoes almost three months after they were picked. Not as scrumptious as those heavenly numbers picked still warm from the vine, but far superior to those rubber things you find at the supermarket in winter.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), July 05, 1999.

Hi Quietly - You might enjoy the gardening forums at gardenweb. There are pages for vegetable gardening, for growing from seed, for preparing your harvest, on herbalism, just about everything you can think of. I have learned so much there! There will be a GW get together in Austin on Oct 9th, look in the Get-Together forum for info. Lots of plant and seed trading. I will try to post a link. Gardenweb Forums

-- Mommacares (harringtondesignX@earthlink.net), July 05, 1999.

Quietly -- the first year I had a garden, I somehow slipped a cog and planted 9 hills of zucchini. I made lots of pickles that year. I also waited until the church parking lot was full, slipped out at dusk, and put a zucchini on every windshield...

-- Libby Alexander (libbyalex@aol.com), July 05, 1999.

Thank you for the Garden Web site. Looks good. LOL, Libby.

-- quietly (quietly@preparing.com), July 05, 1999.

Quietly,

Corn, eh? I remember planting sweet corn my first gardening year -- very educational about pests and pollination. The next year I planted "Indian" corn to get beautiful multicolored ears for next Halloween -- when the stalks started turning purple at ground level I called the university extension service in order to learn, only then, that the whole plant, not just the cobs, naturally turned multiple colors. :-}

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), July 05, 1999.

One year I planted pumpkins and zuchini too close together. Got "pumkini" - looked like large zuchini, except the little flecks in the green flesh were orange and the "meat" inside was orangish.

-- marsh (armstrng@sisqtel.net), July 06, 1999.

Interesting, Marsh.

While discussing the garden with the eldsters at my mom's facility, one of her table-mates told me that if I planted my cucumbers too close to my watermelons that the watermelons would "pick up" the taste of the cucumbers. This cross-pollination issue is becoming more interesting every day. Once I found out that the small-leaved vines were watermelons, I noticed a few plants growing in the garden with even smaller leaves, but in the same shape. The flowers are identical to those of the watermelon. The kicker on this one, however, is that the plant has thistles, and the fruit has turned into burrs. I'm going to pull them the next day the heat isn't ferocious now that I realize they're not really a vegetable, but I'll always think of them as "thistlemelons."

-- Anita (spoonera@msn.com), July 06, 1999.