The Ashley Cucumber Exceeds Expectations

Once the raised bed gardens were set up and filled with soil, I began to plant cucumbers. Many of these varieties I were completely new to me, so I wanted to learn more about them. The first variety that I thought I would focus on is Ashley.

 

The Ashley cucumber is a straight regular American-style cucumber variety that performed very well for me. The first couple fruits that were produced by Ashley were very poorly pollinated. 

 

 

Once the fruit was pollinated properly, the color of Ashley began to come through. I really like the way the fruit has bands of light color in a star-like shape that develops from the flower end of the cucumber and works its way up the fruit. The shape of the fruit was also very consistent - a real plus for an open-pollinated cucumber variety. The fruit not only looks good, but was pretty bitter-free. I really enjoyed it.

Generally, Ashley is a very consistent producer that brings out the best of American-style cucumbers while still offering something a little different. If given the opportunity, I would definitely grow Ashley again.

Thoughts about Orientation of Cucurbit Seed

While I don’t believe that which way a seed is oriented matters when one is dealing with fresh healthy vigorous seed, I do believe that it is a very important factor when planting weaker cucurbit seeds. I have found that the problem with the majority of weak/older seed is that they have trouble shedding their hard outer seed coat. Planting the seed with the radicle facing downward only exacerbates the problem.

The seedlings emerge from the soil, unable to push their seed coats off and eventually die from being starved from the inability to photosynthesize because the seed coats are now dry and the struggling seedling has to push it off without having anything secure the outer covering to pull out from it. After presprouting cucumber seed, I prefer orienting seeds with the radicle facing up at a 45 degree angle, with soil compacted on top of the opposite side of the radicle, so that when the root emerges from the seed and the seedling attempts to remove its leaves from its outer covering, the seed coat is lodged firmly in place so the seed can pull out from it.

Orienting my seeds this way has provided me with a much higher survival rate and much earlier root emergence-to-photosynthesis-time than other methods.
I have included a picture to illustrate my thoughts with the left side with illustrations of what I have observed when orienting seeds with the radicle facing downward and the right side with illustrations based on what I have observed when having the radicle facing up at an angle and with soil compacted onto the opposite side to lodge the harder seed coat in the soil.

I would love to run an experiment with a batch of very consistent fresh seed to see if I can provide hard evidence to an advantage in the time required to have the seedling shed its seed coat. I believe that, without the presence of light the majority of the seeds will sprout at an angle rather than straight down and that the angle at which they sprout enables them to have a physical advantage in leveraging the seedling's first leaves out of the seed coat.

The Family Steps it Up

As the pandemic set in, my little cucumber seed business really picked up. Orders went from five orders per week to 30 or more orders per day. The amount of time this required from me made it so that I couldn’t really spend time doing anything else other than my regular job and my seed business. In order to ensure that I have time to do other things in my life and go to bed at a decent hour, my family generously provided me with needed assistance.

The family helped to make the generic seed packets, prepare all the mailing envelopes and fill seed packets of the most commonly purchased cucumber varieties.

I did all that I could to be a good manager, while still being respectful and grateful for the help.

Growing Pains

With increasing seed sales, comes increasing work and responsibility. One of the first things that my family suggested, to help me, was to create a return address stamp for my envelopes. The idea was that, if I had a return address stamp, I would be able to save a whole lot of time in writing out the return address information on each envelope. I was really excited to use the stamp, but the first one turned out wrong. Sometimes I feel like nothing comes easy in life. Eventually I received a return address stamp that, while occasionally finicky, has been a huge time-saver for me.

The second issue with the growth of my hobby business came when talking with a farmer about selling seed. He asked me, are you registered as a seed seller in California? The thought that I would need to register to sell seed in California was completely foreign to me. You mean that I have to complete some kind of permit and be licensed to sell seed? Apparently this is a thing. Though I have never heard of it, this was definitely something that is required here in California, so I emailed the Department of Food and Agriculture, explained to them my situation and sent a check. Because I had been selling seed for some time, I included all of the previous years of fees along with a late fee for each year for which I had not paid the fees on time. At least I can have some solace in knowing that I did the right thing, as soon as I knew what I was supposed to do.

The third issue I encountered in my business journey was the need to promote my brand. In the past when people asked me for a business card, I just told them how easy it was to find me website (cucumbershop, cucumberseed or cucumberseeds.com). But after someone told me that I should really have a business card, I decided it was time to take the matter seriously. I found a site that made stickers and ordered a set of sticker business cards. Just thinking about having a business card had always seemed pretty boring, so instead I choose to design a business card sticker that someone could stick to the outside of their water bottle or some other item seems a lot more interesting and fun. If nothing else, the logo is pretty cool.

The final issue I had to figure out with my business was how to work with the state of California, to enable me to legally purchase a bacterial fungicide. While bacillus subtilis strain QST 713 would most likely not hurt a fly or a bee, I was required to obtain a permit from the Solano Department of Agriculture in order to spray this organic fungicide on my plants – at least if I purchased it as CEASE from BioWorks. So I had a department of Agriculture agent for Solano County come to my residential backyard to verify that I was indeed growing the cucumber and tomato plants that I said I was growing, in order to grant me a permit to spray them with a primarily benign bacteria. Welcome to the bureaucracy! Though this was just one hoop in many to get my seed business to where I wanted it, one positive thing I learned from the experience was that I could have the a small portion of my seeds from my plot to receive a phytosanitary certificate (documentation that is sometimes required in exporting seeds abroad).

The Long Wait for Italian Seeds

On October 25th, 2019 – having noticed a slight decrease in the germination and vigor of my seed supply, I reached out to a reliable Italian seed company to restock some carosello cucumber varieties that I did not have the time or energy to grow. If I had the time and energy to describe all I did to purchase these seeds, you would wonder why it mattered so much. For anyone not familiar with the process of getting everything in order and working with bureaucracies, the process can be daunting. But after over 114 emails and many days of work and effort utilizing a friend to translate for me – along with a good deal of divine intervention, I finally received the seed package in June of 2020. It was, at least partially, worth the wait.

Acquiring high-quality foreign seed requires so much time and patience. But for me, it is the price I pay to ensure that I can continue to provide high-quality carosello varieties to others.