Growing out of Cucumber Landrace Grex 2023 Season , Zone 5B Central Illinois - No Dig Organic Garden - Southwest Sun Exposure
4/20/23
Direct Seeded
21 Cucumber Seeds from Cucumber Everything Mix
7 StraightEight
7 Marketmore
5/11/23
Placed the remainder of the packet of seeds from the community on an untilled area that has not recently been used for crop production. The area was where my winter protection greenhouse was and until a few weeks ago had a layer of leaves and cardboard covering it. I pulled a couple clumps of field bindweed (it doesn’t’ play nice!) and that was it. Seed directly on the Earth. No barrier. Thinnest layer of mulch to keep them in place and hold a little moisture. Less than ½ inch. We had rain that night and again the next day.
Cucumbers usually grow quickly and outcompete grass and other low growing plants. I’ll pull a couple more if they start to be a problem. I am definitely space challenged. It is companion planted with dry bush beans and cilantro.
In a couple weeks I’ll put up a nylon trellis and let some go vertical and some grow onto the lawn.
In past seasons I’ve had quite a few problems growing cucumbers. They seem extremely susceptible to Powdery Mildew and Bacterial Wilt in my area. I usually have to pull them within a couple weeks of beginning to produce for fear of it spreading throughout the garden. A cucumber growing all season without either will be crazy phenomenal.
5/15/23 Success already! At least seven baby Cucumbers and a couple beans. These are from the May planting a couple days ago.
Nothing yet from the April adventure. We had a dry windy couple weeks right after I planted them. Still might show up in perfect timing or in another spot!
It’s my first season growing seeds from the grex so I’ll be collecting seed from all. I don’t plan on excluding any unless they taste undesirable and then I could keep them separate and marked as such. I expect they will all be delicious! I hope I’m understanding the seed saving and growing process correctly. I’m going to let them grow and be beautiful wildlings. No excessive watering or fertilizing. Just whatever happens but it’s okay to water if it gets close to permanent wilt.
Additionally I hope this is the appropriate way to post status updates on progress. I saw a couple other people were also growing cucumbers but I didn’t know if I should add on or start another? Hope this is okay. Beyond ecstatic to participate in this phenomenal project!
I can relate a lot to this post. Last year I grew Lofthouse cucumber and straight eight. I planted in the middle of the summer. Temperatures were regularly 80 to 100 degrees, high humidity, regular rainfall. What pulled through was some odd yellow cucumber strain from the Lofthouse. I saved seeds from the best, first fruits.
Also, I noticed you direct seeded in wood mulch. I’ve recently learned the dangers of doing that. I planted some giant maxima pumpkin seeds in my flower bed where I have undyed cypress mulch. Something ate the leaves as soon as they germinated. I suspect the mulch provides the conditions for certain pests to live more successfully in that area.
Good luck with your project. Maybe you will be pleasantly surprised with the color or flavor.
I’m rooting for your cucumbers. And if you want more seeds, I’m happy to send you more (I seed they’re sold out in the GTS store), since I was the steward and kept some extra seeds but now don’t need them. I’d love to see these cukes out in the world of powdery mildew.
As the grower of some of the seeds in that cucumber mix, I’m very excited about your project and hope it goes well! I am also aiming to overcome wilt, mildew, and all those depressing cucumber diseases, but last year was so droughty that I didn’t end up selecting for anything except drought resistance. Will try again this year starting in early June.
Wow - how much did the earlier greenhouse warm your soil? Granted, we’ve had a cool and rainy spring, but I just replanted all of my cucumbers and cantaloupes this week in Southern California because round 1 rotted in the ground.
I’ve never grown more than 5 miles north of I-40, but the problem child I’ve had in mulch of any kind is pill bugs/roly polys. Raking it back a couple inches and then replacing it once things are up good (2nd set of leaves is my rule of thumb) takes care of the problem 95% of the time. And it’s cheap entertainment to watch the lizards hunt the pill bugs and earwigs and etc that get exposed when I move the mulch. I have neighbors who swear by chickens for garden insect duty.
Right on! Thanks everyone for all the good vibes and shared enthusiasm! Ahhh soil temp, bugs… I think those might be two woes that can be eased with direct seeding. Within reason of course. Transplanting that’s when that stuff has been detrimental for me.
Lack of moisture. That I feel is totally something that hinders germination. It makes sense to my mind when I think of things that go to seed in a natural environment. Throwing some pics on here of the uncovered Earth directly next to my edging in another area. Wow! Living ground cover is my absolute first choice. Anything that produces something I can use with a tap root is my ideal.
My style of gardening is absolutely not conventional. It’s been an “unlearning” process if you will! I wont get into it too much in this post but I am working on putting something together to share. I grew up here. In the absolute heart of fields upon fields of big ag. I believe gardening is for everyone and the way you are into it is absolutely perfect! In my personal style garden style I try to disturb it as little as possible, work with what I’ve got, and love, love, love them! Usually all my practices are free low to almost zero input and they are always organic. My yields? Crazy huge and beyond delicious. Tomatoes and Peppers sweet like candy! A little background relevant because…
Mulch - Honestly I’ve had a bit of crisis of conscience. It was a tree that was cut, put in a plastic bag, and shipped from its home. Last year I was going to try and be resourceful and use the “recycled” stuff but it’s got a warning on it to not grow food in. Oh my! Remediation and all that jazz but still, I don’t want to bring it here and plant in it. Mulch is the best I can do right now and that’s totally perfect but I really feel like I can do better. I have Hard White Winter Wheat and Black Hullless Barley almost ready for harvest. That’s my Summer mulch plan. This Spring I noticed that the Sunflower stalks totally look just like mulch and now that’s going to be what I put down in the Fall.
Just simple enough to work in this perfectly designed system!
In regards to the Cucumber plot. Normally I would have layered cardboard to keep out the grass, compost/organic matter to offset the nitrogen that gets utilized when the mulch breaks down and then just add organic matter to the top/ add cover crops. For these the mulch is really thin and they are pretty much on bare ground. Like you can still see a couple beans kind of thin. I only put it there because we aren’t getting rain like usual and they would just sit there or blow away. Didn’t want to give the impression they were being babied! Keeping an eye on them and they look like they want to run wild already. Germinated and a couple are vining up within days of hitting the ground. Seeds are such magic! The weather here has been fluctuating for a little over a month. Eighties one day and fifty or lower the next. It’s leveling out now but it’s important to me that they get a chance to get used to the extremes.
I’d absolutely adore for them to come spend a season here and return with some good company! I have another area around fifteen feet down from that one with unamended soil and the same sun exposure but with a little afternoon shade. As long as a vertical grow is okay then skies the limit and they can vine over and hang out together. They will definitely gain some well earned resistance here! I’ll be sure to update on this post of the progress and current weather conditions during the growing season. Growing for the love of growing is beyond exhilarating for me. Growing in a community with the shared goal of breeding seed to provide healthy, strong, vigorous, nutritious and delicious food that can thrive in any environment? Wow. I mean wow! Phenomenal!
The cucumbers in the foreground are from the GTS mix. The zucchini in the foreground are also from the GTS mix. Other varieties are further back in the rows. The location is the Missouri Ozarks. Harvest will begin shortly. We have a lot of losses from pests and diseases in both of these crops here, so I’m hoping to breed hardier selections with the landrace method.
Some watermrlons are also visible to the left. This is a landrace thst I’ve been developing for five years or so, and contributed seed from it to the GTS mix. I decided this year to only get the GTS mixes for crops I haven’t already been saving seed from for very long, just to be a bit cautious with my estsblished projects, but if all goes well I’ll both be contributing and getting seed from a wider variety of crops next year.
I hope the linked worked correctly to show the map of my area. We’re around the Bloomington area. Wow! I have absolutely been spoiled my entire life with a humid area. It was easy to brag about not watering when it rained and we had a high ground table. It rained twice in May. Once in June before last night. They really appreciated it! Temps have been crazy. It was record high temps in the spring with record low in early summer. We saw low 40s out of nowhere in the middle of June. I can absolutely see the incredible value of plants that can adapt to those extremes. I have totally learned so much patience and humility this season. Beyond grateful for being tuned back in. That’s an entire different post…
If on a day in March a kind grower hadn’t pointed me towards this incredibly important work… Let’s just say I would have been incredibly bummed this Summer. I’ve only gotten the hose out twice. Alot of my direct seeding failed. The plants that haven’t? I’m so amazed. I’m absolutely witnessing first hand some of them growing more resilient. Everything grown here this year is drought, heat, cold, and powdery mildew resistant. Nature is crazy amazing.
Back to the Cucumbers
They are doing well but still pretty little. 14 in total. Slug damage at first but then no more! Maybe it’s my imagination but I swear the leaves got tougher and pricklier. The temps are stabalizing now and they seem to have settled in over the past week. They grew an inch with the rain last night! Setting flowers now. The old me would have picked the blooms off to let it get bigger. But I think I’m going to just let them be. They seem to know what they are doing! I feel neglectful sometimes but I tell them how proud I am and that we are doing very important work
Just a quick update. Oh… Powdery mildew definitely afoot. I had to take down a stand of clover and I have a Teasel growing that I tried to treat. It looks a little better but I think it’s just got it too deep. Almost in flower though so l wanted to let it finish and check out all this drought resistant, non lodging, powdery mildew resistant Hard White Winter Wheat.
Hope that helps to show the growing conditions and what’s going on. Slow going but definitely on the up and up and on the way!
Thank you for this update and these photos! Wonderful story I’m so glad you’re growing them this way. Keep us updated, I hope a few survive the powdery mildew.
These are beautiful, and you have so many! What will you be doing with the harvest and what traits will you be selecting for?
Looks like summer squash on the left, are you growing those for market, or seed? Thanks for sharing. I admit to having a bit of warm-summer envy looking at your photos :slight_smile
This will only be my second year saving seeds from cucumbers and summer squash. They have a lot of pest and disease issues in my area. The most important trait I’m selecting for is being able to survive long enough to produce a good yield. Starting early is welcome too, I have marked my earliest producers with flags so that I can save seed from any of those that don’t succumb to disease too soon. However, if a plant is particularly good in other ways but doesn’t begin early I will save seed from it as well. I do pick off squash bugs for a bit when they’re young (else they can kill all our cucurbits by late summer) but otherwise do nothing for pest/disease control and am striving to breed for hardier plants. I will make sure that plants I save seed from taste good, but any serious selection for culinary characteristics won’t come until later on in the project, hardy plants are my highest priority at the present time.
As far as what I do with the harvest, I live at an intentional community called East Wind Community,. The produce is eaten by the community. There are generally around 60 people living here, so we go through a lot of produce. I’ll save some for seed from good performing plants but the majority will be eaten here.
