The Martina Franca in the Raised Garden

Even though things don’t work out the way that we had planned, as we are open to the possibilities, we are often able to see our problems work out. One example of a problem working out for me was in growing the Martina Franca in the Raised Bed Garden. This was definitely not my first choice of places to grow. However, I was told that one of my cubic yard gardening bins needed to be moved on short notice. This made it so that my Martina Franca no longer had a place to grow. At the same time, I kept having major damage to my English cucumber variety at the raised garden. With the onslaught of pillbugs destroying my seedlings, and my dwindling supply of English cucumber seeds, I found that there would be ample space in the raised bed garden for the Martina Franca.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks to the BioDiverso Puglia website, I knew about the Martina Franca for about a decade before I had the opportunity to grow the variety. I actually had a picture of the variety up on my wall for years, hoping that I would one day be able to grow it. I don’t know why opportunities happen, but when they do, I am grateful for them. The opportunity to recently acquire the Martina Franca from an Italian grower was a cherished moment for me. I continue to try to reach out to the gentleman who shared this variety with me to thank him for all that he shared with us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Martina Franca is a very vigorous variety for me. It grew extraordinarily well and quickly set a host of fruit near the base of the plant. The fruit is a beautiful color and texture and the flavor at picking stage makes it one of the best fruits that I have tried in a while. It continues to amaze me how many of the extremely rare caroselli (plural for carosello) produce very high quality fruit. It is a shame that the world is missing out on this gem of a cucumber.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When it finally came time to harvest the cucumbers, I noticed that the flowers looked like perfect hermaphrodite flowers and some of the fruit had low seed count or a high percentage of flat nonviable seed. This trait reminded me the Tondo di Galatina, which has parthenocarpic traits that can make it difficult to set seed. I decided to try growing the Martina Franca again soon, in order to find out if my observations about seed set may, in any way, be related to parthenocarpy in the variety.

The Liso Calcutta Gherkin

The Liso Calcutta is a Cucumis anguria variety that originates from Africa. It is characterized by not just the regular thorny appearance of the Cucumis anguria, but by burly longitudinal ridges that straddle the sides of the fruit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It took a while for me to find the Liso Calcutta. Most seed companies sell one of a multitude of Cucumis anguria under the name of “West Indian Gherkin”. They are called this because there were a number of Cucumis anguria that made their way to the Caribbean via the slave trade. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My experience with the Liso Calcutta was that they grew fairly well. They produced good seed easily, which can be hard for some of the C. anguria varieties. Some other varieties don’t produce good seed until the plant has grown very large, the fruits have substantially plumped up and the fruit has been aged until it is nearly rotting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For those looking for something a little different, the Liso Calcutta is a very interesting variety to grow. While they exhibit many of the same qualities as the New Word gherkins (disease resistance and consistent production until the first frost) I personally prefer them much more than the Melothria scabra Sanditas or “Mexican Sour Gherkins” both in flavor and in texture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Conqueror Cucumber

Unfortunately, I didn’t take the time to snap enough pictures of the Conqueror cucumber. The Conqueror is an extremely productive, long parthenocarpic English-style cucumber. The drawbacks to the variety are that the fruit does tend to get a little bitter in hot temperatures, the fruit doesn’t grow straight unless trellised and the seed is extremely difficult to harvest. Otherwise, the vines pump out a ton of high-quality fruit.

 

I’m really grateful that I was able to grow the Conqueror in 2024 because in 2023 the cucumber beetles were so bad that I was hardly able to harvest anything. Fortunately I was able to avoid the cucumber beetles on the farm land altogether in 2024 by planting the soil blocks into raised beds in-town.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One funny thing did happen over the course of the season. When harvesting the vines, I found a cucumber I didn’t expect. It had grown into and back out of a deli cup. – making a nearly perfect V shape.