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Bitter Cucumbers
sandra255
Posts: 65
in Fruit & veg
I normally buy my mini-cucumber plants as young plants rather than propagate from seed but I made an exception this year and started off my own. In previous years, I just grew them... my biggest problem was finding enough people to gift with the delicious fruits.
This year, with these plants, I discovered there's a lot more to cucumber growing than I'd thought, ie identifying male and female, picking off male flowers etc. One or two cucumbers have been okay, others I've managed to salvage at least part of each fruit by peeling beforehand, using it from the flower end and stopping as the fruit becomes more bitter towards the stem end. More recently though the entire fruit is inedible.
My question is this... now I know about removing male flowers (and what a job that is with 5 plants) is it likely I might get better fruit at some point or should I just bin the lot right now?
0
Posts
It does develop male flowers I have found, and I have never removed any, this is the third year of growing them, and I have never had bitter fruits. So it maybe not the male flowers but the variety @sandra255 , I disliked Marketmore an outdoor cucumber which to me was very bitter, but is grown by many. Try changing variety to all female, or just a different variety, and growing from seed is not too bad, at least you are sure it's the variety you are trying to grow.