Growing Persian cucumbers

Cucumber seedlings emerged after just 1 week. I have started long Persians from seed as well as a pickling cucumber. I just can't help shunning the durable marketmore in favor of more interesting flavors. If last year is any prediction, I will go crawling back to the garden center for some marketmore starts to supplement my failing fancy cucumbers

Spring Vegetables

Despite the complete lack of blog posts, things are growing in the garden. I got the first group of seeds - carrots, spinach, black seed simpson lettuce and leeks - in the ground the first weekend in April. The first lot has been a disappointment with good growth out of the carrots and spinach, but the seeds have come up very sparsely, despite the chicken wire dome I built to protect the seeds from cats, birds and 2 year old D. The lettuce has been mostly eaten by the rabbits, and the leeks have been mostly trampled by D.
I followed up with a second sowing of spinach, carrots and lettuce 2 weeks later, around April 17th. A few carrots and spinach emerged. I haven't seen anything from the lettuce.
In mid-April I also planted cilanto, parsley and snap peas. A few dozen cilantro came up and no parsley. The snap peas, carefully protected from turkeys by a chicken wire dome, have come up robustly and are about 14" tall at 4 weeks. I also started red onions from starts. I'm determined to have all the makings of salsa in the garden this year.
On May 7th, I added greens beans and cucumbers (persian and pickling). The cucumbers are up in good numbers and the beans are just starting to poke through.
On May 15th, I transplanted tomatoes, 8 varieties (big boy, celebrity, golden girl, 2 sun golds, 2 plum and a purple krim). I also transplanted some very tiny basil that looks like it might not survive and peppers (4 japapeno, a cubanelle and 4 yellow bells). All from Russells. I also planted out my broccoli seedlings which are very spindley (no artificial light source) and small. After 2 nights in the garden, they are holding up pretty well. I dropped in some zucchini seeds along the outer, eastern bed that doesn't get as much sunlight. I resowed:

• lettuce - there are currently just 2 heads from the 50+ seeds I've planted
• spinach
• carrots
• leeks

And added some radishes, between the thinly growing cilantro and the red onions and some additional basil and parsley seeds. The parsley resowed naturally from last year, so I have a decent amount already growing, but it is already going to seed. I expect the rabbits will get the parsley seedlings as they start to emerge.

But, most significantly, my honey built me a rabbit fence to keep the critters out of the central garden. This will protect the most vulnerable and sought after plants - carrots, spinach and lettuce. I'm hopeful that the now-protect lettuce will actually make a go of it. Though, May is all about being hopeful about the garden.

Untended vegetable garden

Two weeks of vacation left the vegetable garden pretty ravaged. The bunnies have had a field day munching the basil and squash flowers. The tomatoes grew 2 feet and collapsed under their own weight, taking the stakes down with them and smothering the peppers and eggplant. G built a new contraption to hold them up. (Apparently it rained a lot while we were away, plus we had the sprinkler setup on the timer to go off everyday for 30 minutes.) The blight is taking over the tomatoes. I'm hoping that having them upright and better air circulation will help with the blight, but I've lost the yellow tomato altogether.

Still, we pulled about 2 lbs of beans, buckets of grape tomatoes and a dozen cucumbers out of the garden when we returned. I pickled up the green beans with rosemary and lemon

Growing Persian Cucumbers (part 2)

After an inauspicious beginning, the cucumbers are looking good. The marketmores that I bought as seedlings are larger, but the persian cucumbers started from seed are no less vigorous. The only effort has been keeping them growing along the trellis. A little bit of string and little bit of bending their tendrils did the trick. There are loads of flowers and many wee cucumbers already forming. The cucumbers were not growing earlier in the season.

Growing cucumbers in Boston

We've successfully grown marketmore cucumbers from commercially grown starts in our garden for years, but buying the starts doesn't seem nearly as efficient as starting my own cucumbers from seed.

Last year, I direct sowed cucumbers in the garden and got nowhere. We got 1 or 2 cucumbers from the 20 or so seeds I planted. The few seeds that sprouted never really grew. This year, I started the seeds indoors in newspaper pots (persian cucumbers and an asian variety) in late April. My first problem was that a sunny south-facing window sill does not provide enough sunlight to start seedlings. I need to get a grow light. The seedlings emerged quickly enough, but they grew tall and spindly and not thick and strong. Nonetheless, I planted them out where I knew they would get a lot more sun and hoped for the best.

Late May and early June have served us a hearty helping of cold, rainy weather - which is not a curcurbit's best friend. My seedlings languished. Several died (hey, that's why you plant so many!). Facing the terror of another summer without cucumbers, I went to the greenhouse and bought 2 well-established marketmore seedlings ($3.99 for both), and started feeding everything regularly.

There is some sign of hope amoungst the seedlings I started myself, but can you see the difference between the vigorous 4-leafed marketmore in the bottom left and the other plants in the picture? These cukes get sun from about 12:30 until 7:30 or so in the evening and 2-3 inches of water per week. I'm hoping the weather warms some more, and we get some cucumbers this summer!

What's happening in the vegetable garden

After nearly 2 weeks, I resowed the corn last Thursday (May 21), and covered the whole section with clear plastic. I've been taking up the plastic every other day to water. If I leave the plastic up for 5 minutes, the birds get right into the bed.

The peas are doing well. The carrots are doing well. The second seeding is starting to emerge.

A little bit from the second sowing of mache, but not much.

The lettuces are coming in well now. Looking forward to a garden salad one night soon.

The cucumbers are suddenly ailing. The seed leaves have mostly fallen off, and the second leaves are emerging, but the stalks are weak. Several of the plants have fallen over. I think we may have lost about half, and those remaining do not look strong.

The beans are doing a little bit better, but they don't seem to really be thriving. The seedlings haven't grown much since being planted out. Some of the leaves are getting brown and papery. No sign yet of the beans directed sown.

I fed everything this weekend. Did I mention the $40 spent on fish gut fertilizer? It stinks, but I've had success with it in the past. Vegetables need a lot of nutrients, especially in a densly planted urban garden. The leeks, especially, should benefit from some additional nutrients.

Sunlight is looking good this time of year. The tomatoes, eggplant, peppers and basil get 10 hours of sunlight. The lettuces, leeks, carrots and peas get 8 hours. The strawberries and herbs get 8. The cucumbers get 6.

Growing Persian Cucumbers

The packet of Persian Baby Cucumber seeds from Renee's Garden contained 12 seeds. I started these inside in newspaper pots. 12 sprouted, and they all seem vigorous. Here they are planted out.