Difference between Armenian-type cucumbers

Other than color, there are a number of similarities and differences between the Light Armenian, the Dark Armenian and the Striped Armenian (or Painted Serpent) cucumber melon.

The similarities between all three of these cucumbers is that they are all melons. As such, they prefer warmer weather and will grow very well in the heat. Each of them grows a long cucumber, though based on breeding one variety may end up longer than the other. Each have very visible fuzz when the cucumbers are small, that becomes less noticeable as the fruit fills out. Each of them grows cucumbers that are bitter-free and don’t cause indigestion – unless there is a genetic fluke that makes the melon plant produce bitter melons.

 As for differences, I’ll start with the light, or regular, Armenian cucumber. The light Armenian cucumber is one of the fastest producing cucumbers. Though it requires warm soil, once established, the plant grows very quickly. The plant produces a lot of fruit quickly, then deteriorates quickly. Unlike other cucumber-melons, regular Armenian cucumbers have minimal resistance to some regular cucumber diseases such as cucumber mosaic virus. This variety is the least disease resistant. As for the fruit of the light Armenian, it usually starts out tender and dry. Over time, the fruit becomes more juicy. However, at the same time as the fruit grows, it becomes harder. Thus, for fresh eating the gardener should pick the fruit when the diameter is no wider than they can fit around from thumb to forefinger or to middle finger. Anything wider is going to end up very crunchy, yet also very hard. Those who like mature Armenian cucumbers don’t care if there are hard seeds or if the flesh (especially the outer flesh) is hard. Trying to find the balance between small and tender and large and juicy can be very difficult as the fruit grows incredibly quickly. Thus, those who want a high-quality cucumber may have to do more checking for fruit than they would for other plants. This cucumber is very similar in many ways to summer squash. Sometimes the cucumber is only in “prime” picking stage for a day or two.

The dark Armenian cucumber is somewhere in the middle. It grows vines and fruit a little slower than the light Armenian, but it also has greater disease resistance. It is usually resistant to cucumber mosaic virus, but if stressed it will quickly succumb to powdery mildew. This variety has fruit that begins tender and dry when young, while becoming more juicy and slightly more stiff as it grows. The window of time that this variety can be picked and still be sliced is longer than the light Armenian. The dark fruit definitely has a wider window picking. Usually its prime picking stage is at least a couple days up to a whole week.

The striped Armenian cucumber is the very slowest of them all. This variety takes a lot longer to germinate, grow and produce. The sprawling vines grow quite a ways out and the plant produces larger leaves than the other two varieties. This variety also has the greatest disease and climate resistance. While powdery mildew resistant cucumbers succumb to the fungus, this cucumber variety will keep growing and producing. The beautiful striped cucumbers that are produced on the plant begin dry and crisp and seem to become more tender, yet remaining crisp and tender as they grow. The plants will often grow to a specified thickness and length, then slowly widen and lengthen. The prime picking stage for this variety is usually around a week – unless the plant has grown very big and there is only one fruit on the vine. Of all the cucumber-melon varieties I have grown, this one is the most resistant to the cold. This variety will often continue to produce fruit right up until the first frost. Its ability to hold onto live is much greater than the other two varieties.

So that is it. Though some others may have had different experiences with their Armenian cucumbers, this has been my experience with these three varieties so far. If you decide to try all three in your garden at one time, you may discover some of the similarities and differences for yourself.

Super Composters

Adult Black Soldier Fly

Previous to this year, I had barely heard about Black Soldier flies. I had already purchased some from The Reptile Specialist in Tucson several years ago as reptile feed, but had a difficult time keeping them alive. Unfortunately, I did not know, at the time, how to properly care for these beasts. Fast forward to this winter when I’m out checking on the table scraps in my compost and notice the compost moving along with a noise of critters moving around. So, I take a nearby short hoe and turn them over only to find – black soldier fly larvae by the hundreds.

My food scraps bucket before black soldier flies.

With an especially wet winter, it became quite difficult to keep my black soldier fly larvae in the wooden barrel that is my table scraps compost bin. They would crawl out and leave me having to scoop out their bodies and throw them into the garden. From time to time they became a little bit of a nuisance, but then I just forgot about them. That is until a couple weeks ago when I went outside to throw the inside food scrap bucket into the barrel. I was expecting to see the compost pile at least 8 inches higher and wondered what had happened. I noticed that the regular fruit fly colony that hovered above the bin had completely disappeared and, as I put my hand above the compost area I could feel, on an already warm day, a noticeable heat emanating from the pile. I pulled the first layer of the pile up only to discover thousands of black soldier flies writhing around in mass along the surface.

A Black Soldier Fly resting on a zucchini leaf

Though this may sound disgusting, I have found Black Soldier fly larvae to be the piranhas of the larvae world. It is not that they eat other larvae (such as fruit fly larvae) but rather it is that they out-compete every other fly in relation to all the food scraps that humans produce as well as a host of other things that I will not mention in this blog post. But I will say how cool it is to throw old slices of pizza, fat, bones and other scraps (that you wouldn’t do in a conventional compost situation) into a bin in which they are (within hours) recycled into high quality compost. There is a very good illustration of this in a youtube video with black soldier flies and a hamburger. It is amazing how much heat they produce when they are in mass. This heat does seem to be a factor in helping them to break down things such as whole pieces of rotten fruit or bones.

Black Soldier Flies laying eggs in the food scraps compost bin

So now, I am able to supply each of my nearby gardening friends who have both chickens and compost piles with a great supply of both composters and feed. Should you find any of these friends in a compost bin near you, be sure to welcome them in and enjoy the benefits that result.

Black Soldier Fly Larvae with resulting composted material

About 2-3 minutes of Black Soldier Fly activity - Enjoy!

First Spring

One of many roses around my front door.

Having lived in Southern Arizona for the last 9 years, it was quite a change to move to a climate that experiences seasons. Enduring years of only summer and winter, it has been a wonderful change to finally soak up a spring. The flowers here are incredibly beautiful and the cool mornings and nights are just fantastic - perfect for both walking and gardening.

A cucumber melon plant.

 Since planting my two little plots, my tomatoes have grown quite a bit. With the fact that we have not rented in many years, I was surprised to discover that our home will be inspected soon. What will the property inspectors say about the row of tomatoes in the front yard? Hopefully, they will not worry too much about it, since I had to tear up a bed of weeds to put them in!

A few more flower from the front yard

 

A Celebrity tomato plant with some disease on it.

I am starting to get a few tomatoes growing on my Celebrity, San Marzano and a Rutgers plants and my Little Leaf cucumber is doing well. Given the poor condition of the soil I planted them in, the tomatoes are doing quite well. With the winter and spring rains, the roses around the tomato plants are also thriving. Though the roses are beautiful, mine suffer from some kind of bacterial infection, which has spread to the tomato plants. Alas, my unfortunate experiences with bad bacteria persist, howbeit nowhere near as bad as in my hot, humid garden back in Tucson.

Arkansas Little Leaf Cucumber plant.

San Marzano tomatoes.



Some volunteer flowers.

The cucumber-melons in the backyard are doing alright. After suffering several near-disasters and false starts due to slugs mowing down my seedlings, I have finally amassed sufficient number of plants to do well with this summer. Though I still love going out to see how my long dark Armenian cucumbers are growing, it seems as if my plants are growing in slow-motion in comparison to my Tucson garden. Alas, the moderate-intensity sunlight in Northern California cannot compare with the intense burning heat of southern Arizona sun.

Sweet Potato Update

So, back in mid-January I finished harvesting my purple sweet potatoes. Despite this being the first time that my children helped with the harvest, they did a great job. All told, by January we had harvested 278 pounds. Each variety did very well. I harvested plenty Dingess Purple, Alabama Purple (or Purple Delight) and All-Purple. Even a friend's pink variety did well.

The kids helped harvest these Sweet Potatoes

 

Though I had hoped to sell some on Craigslist, we may be eating a lot of them. That’s alright because my kids don’t mind eating lots of sweet potatoes. (=
 

Purple Sweet Potato Fries (=

 

Arkansas Little Leaf Cucumber

Though I have been wanting to grow Arkansas Little Leaf Cucumber, ever since growing it in my first summer garden, it was not until I recently had access to a greenhouse when I finally made the time and room to grow this incredible cucumber variety.

The Arkansas Little Leaf Cucumber

At the time when I last grew this variety I had not experienced any amount of success with other cucumbers and was highly impressed with the results. Thanks to the University of Arkansas developing and releasing this variety (initially a patented variety) gardeners are able to grow a very prolific cucumber in any climate. One of the ways in which this variety can grow in various climates has to do with its parthenocarpic fruit. When a plant exhibits Parthenocarpy (literally meaning “virgin fruit”) this means that the vines will produce female fruit without pollination.

Male Flowers of the Arkansas Little Leaf

Though plants that are parthenocarpic will produce fruit without pollination, any fruit produced in this manner will be completely sterile. The fruit will simply produce without seeds. Bees or industrious gardeners are required to pollinate fruit if there is to be seed for future generations. As there are generally plenty of male flowers, pollination does not become an issue unless the temperatures outside are over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. In this case, the gardener must wait until the temperatures cool down so that the male and female flower blossoms do not wilt in the heat. 



The Immature Female Blossom at the perfect time for Pollination



Because they are parthenocarpic, the fruit can keep its flower for a while

The vines of the Arkansas Little Leaf cucumber are generally very disease resistant and hardy. The cucumbers themselves are a bit thick-skinned (much unlike the Carosello I am used to growing). This is an incredibly prolific variety that will produce and produce until the plant itself dies. With the fruit exhibiting a very consistent size, Arkansas Little Leaf makes the perfect cucumber for pickling in or out of a greenhouse. 

Arkansas Little Leaf Cucumbers are prolific despite any outside stresses.

On a side note: If you would like to pick up some seed of this variety, you might try my Cucumber Shop. 

Lastly, to summarize: when presented with a pretty prolific parthenocarpic pickler, promptly pick the Arkansas Little Leaf to pack into your next pickling pints.

(=

Arkansas Little Leaf is a consistent pickling Cucumber

Cucumber Beetles

Of all the pests I receive in my garden, the one I see each year – without fail – is the cucumber beetle. To keep my cucumber plants healthy and productive it is important for me to know when the beetles arrive, what they do to my garden, and how to remove them.

How do you know if your garden has cucumber beetles?

Who owns two antennae behind a damaged cucumber flower?

A Cucumber Beetle enjoying a cucumber flower

Here in the South, these beetles can come in many sizes,  colors and patterns. The dominant color is black with white stripes followed by a green variety that possesses black spots. In the past I have seen some that are nearly neon, though more rare cucumber beetles can sometimes be hard to catch – let alone to take a picture of.


To find the beetles, start by looking at your flowers – and more specifically in your flowers. If there are cucumber beetles in there you will see them coming out and flying away.



A Green Spotted Cucumber Beetle

Why care about cucumber beetles?

A Cucumber Beetle on a Flower

Cucumber beetles destroy both male and female cucumber flowers. In addition, if left in the garden they act as vectors for disease and can cause otherwise healthy plants to become diseased. Though most of the references I have read have only noted that cucumber beetles cause bacteria wilt, I have often suspected cucumber beetles of spreading some form of cucumber mosaic as well.

Cucumber Beetle damage to a flower.

How does one get rid of these pests?

A close-up of a cucumber beetle that wouldn't hold still.

Because cucumber beetles tend to be very skiddish around people (with good reason) it helps to eradicate them early in the morning. Around dawn, when many friends I know are still feeling sluggish and tired – so are the cucumber beetles. They are a lot slower and, when coaxed out of a cucumber flower, tend to drop on the ground rather than fly away. Simply place the palm of your hand below the cucumber beetle and he (or she) will simply drop down into your palm where you can determine its fate.

A mating pair of Cucumber Beetles safe in a flower.

Though cucumber beetles are annoying, when compared with other garden pests (such as the notorious squash-vine borer) they are extremely manageable. By keeping my garden free of cucumber beetles I am not only helping myself but all the gardeners around me.



Oh - the brutality! I guess they were not so safe after all.

Bringing Veggies back from the Garden Bed

This post is to follow up the terrible blight I had that destroyed the majority of the plants in my garden this summer.

What I felt I did right with this last disease outbreak: Each year I anticipate that something will get diseased and I plan for combating this in a variety of ways. By watering once every 4 to 5 days I reduce the amount of water that collects on the surface of the soil. Where there is no water interaction between the soil and the leaves of plants there tends to be much less disease. Every time I see dead or dying leaves on my tomato plants I pull and discard them in the trash. Instead of irrigating the plants by overhead watering, I water with a soaker hose. When diseased-looking beans were encountered, I pulled the majority of the leaves off the plant and discarded them in the trash.

Solarizing my Summer Garden

What I felt I did wrong: The local seed company I purchased my seed from is a nonprofit organization, and probably does no testing for disease. They most likely plant these beans in isolation and are not alarmed when plants wilt or die early. It is doubtful that this company treats seed with anti-bacterial agents or fungicides.

While I did pull diseased leaves from bean plants I did not ensure that the dead leaves that had fallen were discarded quickly enough.

Trying all sorts of things to get rid of the blight

How I reacted: Ripping out the majority of a garden is probably the best long term way to deal with rapidly-spreading disease. After pulling the plants, I added some fish meal to the soil, soaked the area by watering for hours before laying down a sheet of 5 mil plastic over the affected area of the garden. By watering and covering the affected area I am essentially “pasteurizing” the soil with a method called Solarization. This method kills both good and bad bacteria in the soil and requires weeks of furloughing the soil.

Another view of my summer garden while solarizing

Future Plans: Because the Rattlesnake pole beans I bought were very heat resistant and tasty I believe I will give this variety another try. However, next time I will be purchasing seed from out of state and putting them in a corner of my garden that is far from my tomato and cucumber plants.

Saving the diseased Rattlesnake beans to give back to the seed supplier

Though a spray application of diluted EM-1 was able to save the majority of my sweet potato plants (and reverse some of the effects of the blight) much like I had experienced before, EM-1 had less of an effect on the rest of my plants. I began a batch of activated EM-1 in an insulated very warm place and plan on applying this in water to my garden immediately after solarizing the garden. The philosophy behind this is similar to taking a probiotic (such as acidophilus and other healthy bacteria) shortly after taking an antibiotic intended to relieve a bad infection.

Unripe tomatoes in a bucket

A Legend or Celebrity Tomato

Some thoughts about treating bacterial diseases in the garden: Though there are many anti-fungal sprays on the market (such as those which contain potassium bicarbonate) antifungal does not always mean antibacterial. While it is possible to treat the leaves of some plants with an anti-bacterial spray, such as highly diluted rubbing alcohol, this is only a short-term solution to a larger problem. Just as a patient would be unwise to take only antibiotics every time he had a stomach ache, treating garden diseases with mainly anti-bacterial agents is, in the long run, bound to backfire - because some form of bacteria is always present in healthy soil. Introducing healthy bacteria into the soil on a regular basis is probably a more effective means of controlling disease.

Delicious Slices of Tomato

The Beans that Killed my Summer Garden

The pretty color of the Rattlesnake Pole Bean

For years I have been looking for a Phaseolus vulgaris pole bean variety that does well in our summer environment. Many other bean varieties do incredibly well in the Tucson Heat, such as the Chinese Long Bean (Vigna unguiculata subsp. sesquipedalis) the Tepary bean (Phaseolus acutifolius) and the Purple Hyacinth Bean (Dolichos lablab L.). Unfortunately, the Chinese Long Bean and Purple Hyacinth bean take a lot of effort to prepare while the Tepary bean is a natural carrier of bean mosaic virus - a disease I do not need to expose my garden to. The Phaseolus vulgaris or common bean tastes good for my family no matter how we prepare it (baking, boiling, stir-frying, steaming, eating raw).

Rattlesnake Bean Flowers

Having heard that Rattlesnake pole bean grows quite well in Tucson and knowing it to be a a Phaseolus vulgaris variety I obtained this variety from a local seed source this last winter.

Rattlesnake Pole Beans are quite productive

Top left leaves showing the first Signs of Diseased Bean Leaves

Without considering the potential consequences of planting a “native grown” variety in my garden, I planted out all the seeds in the packet. The purpose of a pole bean variety in my garden is to provide west-side shade for my tomato plants. This requires that the beans that I plant be completely disease-free, as any disease such as mosaic or leaf curl can spread like wildfire among some of the most virulent tomato plants. Out of the 50 plants Rattlesnake bean plants that popped up about 5-8 had leaves that looked wrinkled and deformed. These were immediately pulled from the garden and discarded. As the remainder of the plants grew, I noticed that many of the lower leaves died off. Though the premature leaf death of lower leaves is very similar to the Tepary bean the yellow leaves with brownish-gray spots was not.

Rattlesnake Beans Spreading Blight to Tomato leaves

Rattlesnake Beans (dead leaves) next to dying tomato leaves

Another look at the Rattlesnake Pole Beans next to Tomatoes

By the time I noticed the yellowing leaves and brownish-gray spots on my tomato plants it was too late. A bacterial blight spread like wildfire directly from the Rattlesnake beans to my Tomatoes and Purple Burgandy Bush Beans (also Phaseolus vulgaris) then to my cucumber-melons. Normally, it can be difficult to trace the direct cause of a garden disease. However, in this case there was a direct correlation between where these beans were growing and where the disease spread to other plants. Every day I went outside to pull branches, leaves, and plants from my garden. 

The characteristic circles and yellowing associated with Tomato Blight

Leaves of Tomato Plant experiencing Blight

Tomato Blight leaf remains exhibit wilted yellow/grayish leaves

When the disease finally began to spread to my sweet potatoes I knew that this was truly a bacterial blight and that the only plants I had a chance of saving were my sweet potatoes and Sunchokes. 

Blight effecting Sweet Potato Leaves

Once I was certain I had ascertained the problem I spent the entire next week measuring my progress not by how fast my garden plants grew, but by how fast I could tear my garden out.

After pulling Blighted Leaves

Ripening Tomatoes Under Shade cloth before pulling out the stems.