Hi Kim,
For what it’s worth, I opted not to order the GTS cucumber seeds because I’m interested in only picklers. Instead, I planted a few pickling varieties together this year. Got a decent crop out of my spring planting, but only managed to save a few seeds. I started a new fall planting a few days ago. Fingers crossed.
Its okay no worries. Hoping your second planting produces for you. I planted the GTS mix a second time a couple weeks ago…hoping something makes it to fruiting and then seed too.
We have been entertaining the question on separating pickling cukes seed from slicers… mostly because of the difference between using them in culinary recipes. A grower could mix them again if working on a landrace. We would be happy to include your saved seed in the mix if you decided to send them in for this year. There is a form on the webpage, under the “seeds” tab, to complete and with the mailing instructions.
Are you going to make pickles? Dill or sweet?
Fermented dill all the way! If I can save enough seeds from this fall planting, I’ll be happy to send them in.
Nice, fermented are good especially when prepared from cucumbers from your garden. We have to assess the number of seeds that get sent in for the mix to determine if there is enough to split the pickling from the slicers.
I harvested the first of the cucumbers to turn orange, fermented the seeds, and dried them, but they all seem thin and inviable. Should I leave them on the plant longer? I was worrying about creatures eating them. What do you all do to determine ripeness? Some folks online are saying a month after they turn color?
Well thats disappointing, they grew so nicely for you…did you snap off any photographs of the cucumbers before processing for seed? The cucumber has to be fully ripe on the plant. They get a deep yellow and almost orange depending on the variety…did you have white or brown cukes mature? They will be larger than for eating and puffy looking.
Can you share a picture of the seeds? There will be some seeds that dont mature, maybe there are some good seeds in your results mixed with the thin ones?
…I looked at your photographs with cukes on the vine…do you remember the fruit that has thin seeds or is it all of them?
Did you open some of the thin seeds to check them? To see if they are empty?
Once they ripen, maybe leave on an extra week, a month to me sounds too long and the ripe cuke may break down and turn to mush.
Hello Malcolm,
You can try the water test. It’s not foolproof, but it might give you some idea as to the viability of your seeds.
The water test is quite simple. You just drop some seeds in a glass of water, and see whether they sink or float. If they sink, then they are probably viable. Some people say to leave the seeds in the glass for fifteen minutes. This is because some types of seeds (such as cucumber seeds) will initially float before sinking.
I hope this helps you.
Jerry Irving
@Kimzy I broke some of the seeds open; they seemed pretty empty. And I compared them with other seeds, both from last year and ones I bought, which are much fatter/harder.
Here is a picture of the cucumber when I harvested it:
All my cucumbers started out different shades of green, so they aren’t white or brown ones.
Here is the same cucumber at an earlier stage:
@Jerry_Irving As far as the float test: I wasn’t around when they were done fermenting, and so a family member washed them off. They said that maybe more than half the seeds remained floating, and those which sank did so slowly; there wasn’t a really clear separation between sinkers and floaters. I can try to drop some of the dried seeds into water and see what happens.
I’ve got two more cucumbers fermenting that look similar to the one above; I started them fermenting before I noticed that the seeds from the last ones looked wrong. There are still more cucumbers on some of the other plants, just starting to turn from green to yellow/orange, so I will have another shot at getting this right if I can figure it out.
You are doing everything very well. The color looks good on your mature fruit. Remember, with a group of different varieties not every one will thrive and some will self select and disappear.
Perhaps you have discovered a self eliminating trait- failure to produce viable seeds. It could also be the result of a parthenocarpic type, the english seedless cucumbers that dont produce seeds. Those types weren’t in the mix to my knowledge. But now I’m curious and looking for more information and research.
Common varieties of non seeding cucumbers are:
Beit Alpha, Mini Dutch, American slicers, some Japanese varieties, lemon cucumbers.
So the parthenocarpic varieties of burpless and European types self polinate and do not produce seed and are hybrids.
Apparently the market demand is for seedless cucumbers because more tasty flesh is available. Most all of the commercial markets are breeding hybrids for seedless fruits. Its mostly a trait for long slicing fruits for fresh salads including no bitter taste.
OK, well I have two more fermenting that were about at that stage of orangeness but from other plants; I will update with what their seeds are like once it finishes.
Also, I started a germination test on the seeds from the last one. And I will try to leave the remaining cucumbers on the plants as long as possible, though winter weather could set in here any time. (Earliest snow I’ve seen here is on September 10th, though the forecast looks hot and we could easily get into October; average first frost is in early October.) I may try to rig up protection for them through the first few cold spells.
Given that that cucumber was one of the earliest and set during a very hot spell, you may be correct that it was some sort of seedless trait, possibly triggered by insufficient pollination.
Sounds like a good plan and hoping the fruits get time to ripen. Glad you shared your observations…thank you.
Supposedly, cucumbers can continue ripening off the vine.
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange says: “It’s best to leave them on the vine for a few weeks after the color change. They’ll begin to soften and should pull easily from the vine. If that isn’t possible, you can let them continue to ripen and soften in a basket out of direct sunlight. When you cut the cucumber open, the seeds should appear large and full.”
If your cucumbers change color before your first frost, then you should be able to pick them early and leave them inside for a few weeks if necessary.
@Kimzy Personally, I don’t think this is do to parthenocarpy. I grow some parthenocarpic cucumbers, and they produce viable seeds as long as they are pollinated. If they aren’t pollinated, then they won’t make any seeds. They won’t even swell up. The cucumbers in the pictures don’t look parthenocarpic to me.
The fact that any seeds were formed, and that the fruits swelled up sounds more like stenospermocarpy to me. This is what causes seedless grapes and some seedless citrus. Stenospermocarpy can result from a genetic mutation. Do you see any signs that your cucumbers might have mutated?
Were the seeds soft? Were the fruits larger than usual? Those are both signs of stenospermocarpy.
Jerry Irving
I actually let that first cucumber sit for about a week off the vine before processing; the picture was taken right after harvest. It softened and wrinkled over the course of that week.
I’m not sure whether the fruits are larger than usual; it came out of the GtS mix, so it could have been anything. I suppose the seeds might have been rather soft; I didn’t notice at the time.
Hi Jerry,
Yes, good point…mutation can be possible as well. You are spot on observing that the fruits are still swelled as if viable seeds are present… I had leaned towards parthenocarpic due to many slicers mixed with pickling fruits within the GTS mix. Im not sure if its a recessive or dominant trait. My study of genetics is very brief. Even though the origin of the seeds is most likely heirlooms that should all produce seeds there could also be F1 hybrid seeds in the mix. We are gonna get some wonky results with the first few generations of fruits. Successful pollination is so very importantant as we know and can also explain away poor seed development.
Trying to be practical…For this year GTS mix contributions should we go forward with the seed we have produced exclusively or continue to add more outside heirloom seed?
I think we should continue adding more genetics if possible. If everyone only contributed seeds selected from the GTS mix, then some genetics might eventually be completely selected out of the mix. This could lead to a lack of potentially useful genetics that some future member might need.
Jerry Irving
Indeed, so for each person who submits seed…should they choose an heirloom from another source to send in to GTS with the seed they grew? Or should we just add an heirloom to our GTS seed within our gardens and grow them out together?
Either one would work, but adding genetics to your landrace isn’t necessary. Some people pointed out that, after a certain point, adding new genetics to your landrace could undo all of your hard work.
What I mean is that you can add more genetics to the mix, but you might not want to add more genetics to the seeds you are growing. Though, this largely depends on the current state of your landrace. That is, how adapted and selected your landrace already is. If it is a young landrace, then more genetics might be useful. But if it is an almost finished landrace, then new genetics could mess everything up.
Jerry Irving
So I recently extracted seeds from the other two cucumbers I harvested; like the last one, they were bright orange, and I only saved the seeds that sunk while washing them. But like last time, the seeds seemed thin, soft, and inviable.
I’m going to leave the remaining cucumbers on the vine as long as possible. Some of them have been yellow for two weeks and are not turning orange; maybe that is their final color. Our first wave of cold weather may be coming in later this week.
Sounds like a plan. We are actually getting lower than 100 degrees for a few days, then another ten days of 104 degrees…I’m hoping the lettuce seed germinates.
Challenges in the beginning that the cucumbers emerged victorious from included Johnson Grass, Field Bind Weed, cold, second year extreme drought, and various animals.
I planted almost all of the seed from my 23 harvest with the desirable characteristics I was curious to replicate. I consider that giving priority to a naturally occurring hybrid. I hung onto around twenty to ensure I was able to produce seed this year. They were all direct sown at different times throughout the garden beginning in early April and ending in early June.
The plants themselves were really long. Vines kept dwarfing my tomatoes and taking over the bed. I pulled them to the side a couple times and they just kept growing up and up. Extremely vigorous.
Not too much variation in the fruit from last year but the trichomes (black spikes) were fewer. I tasted as I saved the seed and yes they totally were firm and edible at seed saving stage. I could see this as a desirable trait as it is for sure unique in comparison. I left them sitting on my bakers rack for a week or so after they had ripened to yellow on the vine. The middle was total liquid, just poured out. The flesh was still firm and tasted like a cucumber. I tried one before seed saving stage and it was almost TOO cucumbery. I think they would be really phenomenal for fermenting or pickles.
I attempted to introduce cold tolerance on 4/7/2024 with soil temperature of 57 degrees Fahrenheit
4/9/2024 Germination with alot of seedlings and rain overnight
4/20/2024 I planted more. Overnight low was 33 degrees Fahrenheit
All was well until it wasn’t because of skunks! Completely ravaged the garden. Within a week they had the whole area dug up/devoured. My only defense was to flash lights and yell at them. I’m sure that didn’t appear insane at all 
Also residing within 20 feet of my yard is both a possum and a groundhog. Everything’s got to eat and they eat well! This first planting did not make it but I mention it to note a cold tolerance is definitely there.
Fast forward to 5/14/2024 The animals are not at all in check but the garden is beginning to grow and they don’t seem to be digging in the areas that are full of tomatoes or walking onions. Maybe they don’t care for the smell? I planted more seeds in various parts of the garden focusing on hiding them in the safer spots. I basically direct sowed them everywhere for the next two weeks as to give them the best chance to blend into the background and be protected by the bigger plants.
There were around ten in total that produced fruit for seed. Thank goodness I planted some along the dripline. The plants in other areas produced a few. As in two! Plants really really appreciate water. It was easy to brag that I did not water when we had rain. Now in the thick of a two year drought… My dripline provides a little irrigation via the runoff from our reverse osmosis. Definitely not enough to be considered coddling but on a regular basis enough to be called consistent and an ALMOST normal amount.
10/14/2024
They said it was going to be a freeze. 30 degrees fahrenheit overnight. I was totally cool with a frost to gain some cold tolerance but a freeze I cannot protect against. I spent the day harvesting all viable fruit I didn’t want to become damaged. I cut them back along with all the tomatoes on the side of the home in preparation for planting garlic. They looked pretty sad by this point as they had been exposed to blight for a couple months and had finally started to succumb. I figured they had done good and deserved the rest. Interesting that one has the reemergence of the thickened black trichomes as well as pretty significantly sized warty bumps. Still not quite ready to harvest seed but should be within the week. After harvest they still have to dry before a freeze. Almost impossible to make the November time frame but I shall try to get them in. If not I’ll just send what I have.
In summation, returning seed that has endured a dry and cool shortened growing season in my no till organic garden. I’ve kept it separated for the steward to decide if they would like to prioritize any of the differentiating characteristics noted. They have seen weed pressure, powdery mildew, blight, mosaic virus, cucumber beetles, squash bugs, various rodents, etc. I did not fertilize with anything nor perform any type of pest management. They continued to produce, the taste is above excellent and they exhibit characteristics that are slightly varied from the conventional norm. I think that’s pretty dang impressive.
In the future I would like to continue to allow my plants to gain cold tolerance and faster maturation. Facts are facts and my growing season is shorter and milder. It didn’t quite warm up to 70 degree overnight temperatures till midJune here and it was done by August. A couple of weeks of really hot weather but then just kind of mild with a spike in temperature for a few days here and there. Definitely zero consistency. I’ve saved a handful for planting next year in my garden and am returning the rest to the program. I’ve enjoyed growing them and appreciate both the experience and the sweet seedstock score.
