Carosello Mezzo Lungo Barese

In 2018 I was looking for a couple of new varieties. I was interested to see if there was any huge difference between the very ancient variety of the Carosello Medium Long of Barese that my friend Angelo provided to me and the usual variety offered by seed companies.

 

The seed for this variety had been given to me back in 2013 and was probably old seed then. Fortunately, the seed did germinate (slowly) but took off as soon as planted in the fertile garden. Apparently - incredibly fertile soil has the capacity to bring about miracles with older seed. Perhaps it has to do with the healthy bacteria in the soil. In any case, everything grew quite quickly until I had to pull the plant.

Why pull the plant you ask? It is because I was having to isolate the carosello from the unknown carosello variety and the Medium Long of Tarantino. With having to go back to the garden almost every morning to ensure female flower purity, I was getting worn out. I had already grown a Mezzo Lungo Barese and honestly – this carosello can be a little too crisp for some of us. So, in short, the Medium Long of Barese vines were culled to make room for some more interesting carosello varieties.

The Fertile Garden - 2018 Edition

A wonderful opportunity came to our family in the spring of 2018 when my son was given the opportunity to help mow the lawn and help weed at a friend’s home. The friend’s backyard once had an above-ground pool connected to a deck. After the pool was removed, he put grass where the pool once was and put a garden along the edges of the yard.

Over the years, he has incorporated his lawn clippings (without pesticides or herbicides) with high carbon material to make compost. He lets this sit for a year, then in the spring he mixes the compost with his garden soil and tosses any clumps of hard clay into the trash bin. The soil he tosses is much higher in quality than most people’s fertile soil. Along the edges he grows his vegetables. He mostly grows things he enjoys such as peas, pole beans, corn and tomatoes.

Over time, due to family demands, he has not had the opportunity to use the whole yard and, after receiving permission to plant a couple cucumber plants, he has allowed me to expand to much of his area. In return, I compost all of my plant material in his compost bin and keep the area basically weed-free while the plants are growing there. In addition, I have recently been adding my own compost to his already fertile soil.

The very first plants I grew were a mix of three different plants. One was a Medium Long of Tarantino, the other an unknown variety and that third was a medium long of Barese. The unknown variety and the medium long of Barese were from my friend Angelo. I grew all three of these in and around a little cube that the plants could trellis up.

Once I was mostly done growing these out, my friend allowed me to utilize some more space to grow out the Carosello Barese. Finally, I tried growing out the Carosello Tarantino from the seed packet one last time.
 

The end of the season along with powdery mildew

2018 Dark Armenian Cucumber

Many gardeners do all they can to maximize their crop production over the summer. In order to do this, they will often begin early with transplants, utilize vertical space, make succession planting and end as late as possible. With each of these techniques, I am as guilty as any gardener in wanting to squeeze as much out of my summer garden as possible. In mid July of 2018 my Carosello Tondo Tarantino was still on the vine, but all the male flowers were withering away. I made quick work to plant out a few transplants of the Long Dark Armenian cucumber-melon.

One of the little harvests from my late Dark Armenian Cucumber crop.

Seeds from this cucumber-melon came from my 2016 grow-out. Although I have yet to produce a consistently long growout of this cucumber, I will continue my breeding work.

The plants grew pretty well, but by the time September came around, so did the cool humid nights. Along with the cool humid nights comes one thing every cucumber-melon grower dreads. Yep – powdery mildew. Though my theory is that the long dark Armenian came into existance as a cross between the striped Armenian and the long dark Armenian cucumbers, it seems that any of the powdery mildew resistence of the striped Armenian variety remained with its cultivar. During the majority of my growing season I am able to stay clear of this menace. However, I am beginning to feel that if I want to ever grow another cucumber-melon variety after Labor Day (near the beginning of September in the United States) then I’ll have to grow the Striped Armenian (AKA: Painted Serpent).

 Unlike most other cucumber-melon varieties that I produce, the Painted Serpent grows excruciatingly slow in its development. However, its cold-tolerance and disease resistance is unmatched by other cucumber-melons – so it may be a very good variety to try as a end-of-season transplanted crop.

 So – the harvest from this last attempt at cucumbers was pretty meager. Even with a meager harvest, its nothing to complain about. Though my final crop did not produce in the way I wanted, this was a long shot. Additionally, this dark Armenian cucumber was the third cucumber-melon variety I had grown in my garden during that summer.