The Xylangouro Greek Cucumber

What can I say about the Xylangouro? I watched a video once that touted it as better than the regular Armenian cucumber. While this may be true, I’m not too impressed with this Greek landrace variety. It did alright in the greenhouse for me, but the flowers were all different and the shape of the fruit was a bit irregular.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despite being sold by a well-known company, I’m not sure if I will be growing the Xylangouro to offer to others for a while. Why is that, you ask? The texture of the fruit that I tried, along with the variable flower type tells me that this is a variety that promises more work than reward. Though it may sound selfish, I prefer to grow the more promising varieties first and save the less rewarding varieties until later. Over time I usually get around to the others.

Dark Armenian Cucumber in the Greenhouse

Desperate for a supplier of Dark Armenian cucumbers, I tried one well-known seed seller. Unfortunately, the germination was not up to specifications. That being said, I still wanted to know if the variety was actually what it was advertised as – just in case I needed an additional source of Dark Armenian cucumber seed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I grew it out in the greenhouse in the spring. The variety did alright. It wasn’t exactly as vigorous as I would have hoped, but given that it sprouted from old seed, I was happy when the fruit eventually set. One fruit was enough to let me know that it was true-to-type, howbeit not want I would want to use for my future population of Dark Armenian cucumbers.

English Telegraph Experiment – One More!

Everyone, including myself, will inevitably makes some mistakes. The mistake that I happened to make with my recent English Telegraph experiment was that I left seed of one seed supplier out. The seed supplier in question was Stokes Seed, from Canada. Unfortunately, Stokes seed is unwilling to sell to anyone outside of Canada, so I had to work with some Canadian friends of mine to acquire the variety.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the greenhouse was full, I started a few more seeds in some soil blocks and transplanted them into a friend’s plot that I refer to as “the fertile garden”. The plants did alright, but struggled for most of the season due to overhead watering.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I was finally able to harvest the mature fruit, they were seedless. It looks like finding an English Telegraph cucumber variety that will work for me will take quite a while.

English Telegraph Cucumber Experiment

One extremely popular cucumber that is very difficult to find is called the English Telegraph or sometimes also called the “Telegraph Improved”. Some of the drawbacks of this variety as a grower include the fact that it does not care much for hot weather and is extremely parthenocarpic. Because the female flowers set fruit without pollination, this makes the English Telegraph very difficult for saving seed. When I say difficult, I mean that some fruit will go from blossom to maturity without the flower opening up. This makes pollination practically impossible. Even with those flowers that do blossom, 20 seeds per fruit is an extremely high count and average counts for this variety average about 5 seeds per fruit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With such an abysmal outlook on the harvest, why would anyone want to try saving seeds of this variety? Because it can be grown in a greenhouse, has nice long cucumbers and, once established, is generally easy to care for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over time I have had difficulty sourcing seed for this variety, so I decided to try growing some seed for myself. In my greenhouse, I began by trying to grow some seed from three different sources including the GRIN government repository, Some from Seed Savers Exchange and few leftover seeds from the old Sustainable Seed Company.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The GRIN repository variety did alright, but over time it became very apparent that the variety was not true-to-type. The cucumbers did grow, but they were a bit warty and short – nothing like the regular English Telegraph. However, they were parthenocarpic – producing fruit without pollination. After a little while, I tossed the plants. This variety failed the true-to-type requirement of my experiment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Old Sustainable Seed Company seed produced great looking straight cucumbers that – more often than not – looked just like the English Telegraph cucumber should. However, the problem was that once harvested the fruit had no seed in them. To add insult to injury, I had absolutely no seed left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, the Seed Savers Exchange English Telegraph was true-to-type, a little curved, slightly bitter and produced some seed – but none was viable. At least with the Seed Savers variety, I had a jumping off point for future grow-outs. Finally, I have the opportunity to try growing more English Telegraph cucumbers in the future.