cucumbers

[songbird]

we haven't grown cucumbers here before. many years ago we grew them at our other place but i don't remember the "art" of it as that would be 30-40something years ago.

which brings me to the question of why one cucumber out of seven would be extremely bitter?

as it is sliced up and marinating in a mix of onion, mayo and apple cider vinegar i cannot tell which slices are going to zing me until that bite is committed, but i will eat them anyways. i don't mind them as much as Ma does. she won't eat it at all.

songbird

[David Hare-Scott]

I have had the same experience. I don't know why it happens, does anybody have any good information?

D

[Bill who putters]

I have grown sweet peppers and been surprised by the occasional hot outliers . I thought of cross pollination but the following URL suggests maybe not.

[Pat Kiewicz]

You may have one plant that is, unfortunately, expressing a recessive gene for bitterness. You'll have to identify the rogue and remove it.

Hot, dry weather does tend to bring out the worst in cucumbers, though.

[songbird]

we have four clumps of cucumber plants and each clump has two or three plants vining around. i think we are in between harvests now for a bit. when i go out to pick again i'll have to mark harvest bins and mark each plant and see if i can narrow it down...

hot and dry is about all it has been. the next few days we're in the "chance of thunderstorms" zone again, but i won't believe it until it hits the ground.

we were surprised by these cucumbers to begin with as we'd not seen them developing (they're kinda "outback") and then we were digging garlic and i noticed one so we checked them all and found six others.

thanks for the replies folks, we'll see how it goes...

songbird

[Ecnerwal]

Not that any of them worked this year (time for new seed, I guess - last year the weather did them in and nothing germinated from old seed this year) but I switched to lemon cukes (exclusively, so I could save seed) years ago. Weird little things, but the most reliably non-bitter cuke I've found so far. Don't need to peel them at all - just rub the spines off and eat. I feel similarly to your Ma about the bitter ones.

If you are not peeling your slices, you might or might not find that throughly peeling (every trace of dark green) will take away most of the bitterness, as it's often with the peel. If you already are, then you got the evil fruit. You could sample as you pick and see if it's trackable to one plant - if not then just sample as you slice and reject the bitter ones before you put them in the marinade.