Growing Marketmore 76

My decision to grow out Marketmore 76 came from my desire to try out a classic. Other than eating cucumbers like this from the grocery store, I have never grown a “regular” grocery store type cucumber.

June 20th, 2018.

June 26th

July 2nd

July 11th

July 18th

July 28th

August 8th

This cucumber variety grew fine. It matured at a regular pace and had no problems. I enjoyed seeing all of the fruit. The first couple of cucumbers did not fill out properly, but after a while they did just fine. Average shape of this cucumber is the normal straight cucumber shape. Most of the cucumbers filled out without a problem.

August 23rd

August 30th

 

And here it goes with taste: The taste was a little better than a market cucumber. I would have to say it was pretty good – especially when it is homegrown. It is amazing how, just by growing your own cucumbers at home – you can get a cucumber that tastes much better than what you would purchase in the store.

September 8th

September 29th

None of mine turned out bitter, but it had the usual sappy flavor exhibited in most regular cucumbers that makes it difficult to have more than one. My overall take on this variety: If you want a completely average standard cucumber, this is the one for you.

Catching up with 2018, beginning with The Chicken Garden

Because of various factors of life in 2018, I was unable to finish blogging about my gardening last year. It is important to go back to last year’s gardening because much of what I did in my greenhouse this last summer was built upon work I did in other gardens in 2018. As I do still have a lot to say about what transpired in all three gardens last year, I will be taking a break from talking about the trial varieties of carosello I grew in my greenhouse in order to review what happened last year, starting with what I refer to as "The Chicken Garden".

 

Backyard with the chicken garden. The garden is on the very left.

Chicken run and chicken coop.

Chickens

To review, last summer’s Chicken Garden was an opportunity I received when one of my children was given the opportunity to babysit chickens while a friend of mine was out with his family on their summer vacation. The plot is on a quarter acre that is mostly bordered by deciduous trees on the southeast and very tall juniper trees on the southwest. And, of course, there are chickens.

A view of the garden in late June.

Clay dirt and lots of rocks.

My friend said that I could utilize the whole garden, but – after examining the poor soil and weeds – I wisely accepted use of just one-third of the little plot. The soil (if you can call it that) was mostly clay and rocks. Organic matter was nearly deficient except for some hardy bindweed and occasional tufts of Bermuda grass. Breaking through the soil required a lot of heavy labor and, at one point, I accidently broke one of my friend’s old shovels (I apologized and brought my own shovel after that).


 

June 26th, 2018

Critter damage.

Using plastic containers to protect seedlings from critters.

I began by growing some regular cucumber varieties that I wanted to learn some more about. After spreading a lot of compost and some soil amendments, I planted Marketmore 76, Salt and Pepper and Northern Pickling cucumbers.

July 18th, 2018

 

July 23rd

July 24th

As for the carosellos, I wanted to find out some more about all of the Spuredda Leccese varieties that I owned. Spuredda is another name for Carosello, so that is not a very good descriptor. Sometimes seed packets will say “Carosello Spuredda Leccese Verde”. This is not completely accurate either, because even though the cucumber may be green – as most cucumbers are – the variety that they are referring to is better referred to as “dark green” That is why the term “scuro” seems to be the best fitting for this variety. In any case – the coloring, shape, texture and the variety of seed that is in any “Carosello Spuredda Leccese” packet can vary so widely from one variety to another, that I decided to grow three different varieties – one from my friend Angelo, and two from Italian seed companies.

July 30th

August 6th

August 6th

August 8th

Work on the garden began in late June and ended near the end of September. Given that the soil was so rocky, I was not expecting too much, but most everything grew as well as could be expected. One of the more difficult problems I encountered was that I didn’t make the time to get a timer for the soaker hose, so instead I just kept the soaker hose on all the time at an incredibly small rate. This was a big mistake. Although carosello are able to do quite well in poor soils, they cannot handle sitting water for very long. If left to sit, clay soil can compact incredibly easily under its own weight leaving the roots of the plant starved for air. I almost lost one of my prize varieties last year due to exposure to stagnant water on the clay soil. As with many drought-tolerant plants, the roots of carosello are much more forgiving to underwatering than they are to overwatering.

August 13th

September 8th

September 29th

My friend, who owns the property, looking at some cucumbers.

With most of the plants done, mostly weeds remain.

Weeds on September 29th

Tilling weeds into the soil.

Though there was a lot of sun in May and June, it quickly declined over the month of August due to shade from the stand of Junipers. The summer went by quickly and, by September the plants had declined substantially. Weeding was something I just never have time to do. I definitely pull weeds that are going to seed, but otherwise I try to time the removal of my weeds with the end of the growing season. At the very end of the season, when I was done harvesting all of the plants and fruit I turned in the thriving weeds to keep them from going to seed while utilizing their remains to enrich the soil.