All Good Things at the Chicken Garden

After several years, lots of work and constantly investing my time and energy into improving the soil, I decided to finally hang my hat up at the chicken garden – at least as it pertains to growing cucumbers in the infertile rocky soil. Additionally, there were often issues with consistent water and my plants were often having to compete with other transplants that were put into the spaces all around where my plants occupied.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part of the issue involved the decreasing production of the plot. When I, as the gardener put more inputs into a garden and get less out for multiple years in a row I can feel frustrated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While there is still a possibility that I will be able to grow plants in this area again in the future, for now I will not be growing anything in this keyhole garden. Unfortunate as it is, sometimes continuing to put significant investments into something that is not paying back is not worth the effort.

The Shintokiwa Cucumber

One of the primary reasons I decided to grow the Shintokiwa cucumber variety was because other had told me that it was very good. It was apparently introduced to the greater seed community by the Richard Everett Farm. People tended to really like it, so they have continued to offer it through Meadowlark Hearth and through selling to other seed vendors. The Everett Farm shared it with Uprising seeds, where I sourced my seed from.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, Shintokiwa is a lot like Diva. It is a Beit-Apha-ish kind of cucumber. Very similar to an Asian or Lebanese cucumber when small and very similar to an American cucumber when larger. Fortunately, it lacked the freshly cut clover flavor of some other Beit Alpha varieties and the texture and taste were rather pleasant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the pictures, you can see that a large portion of Shintokiwa cucumbers did not turn out very straight. Honestly, I would fault the soil for this issue. The soil I was dealing with tended to make plants underperform, including the Shintokiwa – but the plants continued to do alright. The Shintokiwa did exhibited significantly less catfacing then Diva. I am sure we still had a lot of wind this summer and the skins were not that thick, but perhaps the Shintokiwa has a little thicker skin than the Diva. In any case, if you live in a windy location, I would stay far away from varieties that have catfacing traits to their tender skin – because it will be very difficult to harvest a marketable crop if you grow them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall, I would have to say that the Shintokiwa did a lot better than some of my other regular cucumber varieties that I have grown. Much better than a lot of picklers, for sure – but not definitely not in the same league as the carosello. If I could grow this variety again, I would prefer to try cultivating it in more fertile soil in better conditions to see how well it does.

The Facussa in the Chicken Garden

Right before leaving on a trip in 2021, I knew that I needed to harvest the Carosello Spuredda Leccese Scuro. I was going on a trip that would last for over a month. If I left the fruit on the plants while I was away, they would likely mature, decay, spill their seeds and have the seeds overheat and go bad. This scenario would leave me with a lot of work and very few, if any, usable seeds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Instead of leaving these plants, I harvested all of the fruit off of the vines, composted the plants and put in 10-inch hydroponic baskets with Facussa transplants. The Facussa would likely require at least 3 weeks to fruit and likely another 3 weeks to fully mature. This would provide me enough time to have the fruit mostly grown by the time I returned home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I returned home I noticed that, while the fruit did mature well and look alright, the soil continued to perform poorly. I did grow a crop, but the vines (and subsequently the fruit) was stressed. This resulted in most of the fruit being smaller or drier than it could have been. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As far I know that many of these cucumbers can be dry-cropped in their native climate, it was a little surprising how poorly the chicken garden plot performed.