Scary Yankee Chick

My last plant isn’t dead yet, but it looks to be getting there, I don’t expect any of the remaining baby cuc’s to grow any further.

I got a total of 79 edible cucumbers off of 3 plants.  Another 5 were tossed in the compost because they “looked funny”. 

Two of my 3 plants died back in the middle of July, both reached the 3ft mark and stopped growing.  The 3rd reached a height of 57 inches (or 3 inches short of 5feet).  So much for the reviews that stated that they rarely got over 3ft in height……

These are awesome little cucumbers.  Perfectly sized for a snack, or a personal salad, or for slicing into slices for pickles.  Wonderfully tasty, raw or as pickles.  Without the bitterness you can sometimes get in storebought cucumbers.

I did have some issues with Striped Cucumber Beetles.  And I’m half convinced that they’re why the two plants died when they did.  But I’m going to try growing this again next year I think, cause they were just that tasty!

Edit: I was wrong, got another 6! cucumbers off the plant since this was posted, bringing the number to 85.

Back in the spring I started looking at compost bins.  We’d not done proper composting here, for a variety of reasons, alot of which boiled down to having a ton of things to do.

With almost two acres of property, almost all of it grass (or well, grass, clover, and a variety of green weeds that mow just like grass), on a property were I not only don’t have to water the grass to keep it green, we have to mow it twice a week at least over the leach fields to keep it from jumping to knee high.  If we used the bagger attachment for the riding lawnmower we could fill up one of the little compost bins in one mowing.

But the big compost bins are way to expensive for what they are. 

So I started looking at building a bin.

And then after some discussion we decided to skip using a bin at all.  I doubt anything other than steel would keep out our wildlife if it really decided it wanted into the bin anyway. 

So now I have a compost pile down by the southern back line.  I know the rabbits (or something) have  stolen some of the vegi greens and trimmings out of it at least a few times, but thats ok.  They don’t seem to be inclined to dig through the whole pile, which is what I really cared about.  I gotta say its composting nicely.  Can’t wait to have good dirt for next spring’s garden additions!

….that the outdoor temps affect my garden…..

Several days with highs barely hitting 70 (and sometimes not hitting it), lows in the low 50’s, and I get barely one or two ripe tomatoes a day.

Two days with highs in the 80’s, lows in the mid-60’s, and on the third day I pick this:

Temps are supposed to hold through today, then drop again for at least two days, then warm up again.  So we’ll see what happens…..