Mostly Dark Leccese

What is sometimes advertised, but I have yet to grow myself, is a completely dark Carosello Leccese. As a side note: Spuredda means the same thing as Carosello, so what I the seed companies basically say is that it is a "Carosello Carosello" Leccese. I have worked to grow this variety out and I am still working on finding a completely purely dark line. When I planted out my seed at the chicken garden, I was expecting a lot more completely dark Carosello Leccese than not. The variety shown in this post is from the seed source that I am currently using for my Carosello Leccese dark seed for CucumberShop.

The mostly dark splotched Carosello Leccese

The completely dark Leccese are on the bottom right

 

August 11th, 2018.

August 14th

August 14th

When harvesting this variety, I found the flesh to be slightly crunchy (not too stiff) and the flesh to have adequate water content.

 

The plants were put into the ground somewhere before July 11th, 2018 and grew them out until somewhere around September 8th. Much of the fruit grew slowly – mainly due to the poor fertility of the rocky soil.

August 23rd

August 30th

September 8th

My mostly dark Carosello Leccese is definitely a variety worth either saving or finding a better seed source for (to find a more truly dark color) so that I can continue to grow it out in the future.

The mostly dark Carosello Spuredda Leccese

One of the Most Rewarding Vegetables

Dear Gardening Friends,

Along with the Urban Farm Podcast interview, I also wrote a little post for the Urban Farm Blog. The post includes some pictures of cucumber varieties that I grew this year will probably not get around to blogging about until this upcoming year.

Though it was not up for a while, the post finally got put online.

I hope you enjoy!

Your Friend in Gardening,

-Jay

My second Striped Carosello Leccese harvest

Northern Pickling Cucumber

Northern Pickling was a verity that I decided to try out mainly to see what it tasted like, more than anything else. Although I really love growing Arkansas Little Leaf as a pickling cucumber, it is a little hard as a slicing cucumber. I happened to have seed of this variety and wanted to find out how well it did as a dual-purpose slicing and pickling cucumber.

The Northern Pickling Cucumber

June 26th, 2018.

July 2nd

July 23rd

July 28th

 

August 4th

August 8th

This variety grew out very well in the season. There was nothing especially significant about this cucumber’s growth. It did seem to do pretty well in the heavy clay soil that I grew them in. Like many other cucumber varieties – the richer the soil, the more intense the sunlight and the longer the day – the faster the cucumbers grow. The real limiting factors for this variety were the poor soil and the partial afternoon shade each day.

August 8th

Considering everything, the Northern Pickling cucumbers did quite well. Of all of my regular cucumber varieties that I trialed in 2018, they were the most productive.

August 11th

As it goes with flavor, they tasted very similar to grocery store cucumbers, but a little harder in the skins. This would definitely make them better for pickling than many other varieties. However, I did really enjoy growing this variety and would definitely grow it again for its productivity, color and versatility. As it goes with being a dual-purpose cucumber, Northern Pickling passed with flying colors.