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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] cucumbers

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  • From: "cjmaness AT juno.com" <cjmaness AT juno.com>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] cucumbers
  • Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2006 16:21:28 GMT

Hello everyone,

Our market is saturated with people selling slicing cukes. So, we grow picklers only. After 4 years we hit on two varieties that are excellent! 'Vlasstar' and 'Ballerina'.

I start them in peat pots about 3 or 4 weeks before our last frost date(April 15) here. We transplant directly to the field. Everything is on drip. This planting will last about 5 or 6 weeks and by the time it is tired out I have another planting ready to be picked. This later planting is direct seeded.  I seeded about 200' of row and that was too much! We are still working out exactly how much to plant. We sell more early in the season because people are wanting to make pickles then.

We pick them at various sizes. We have a large international population at our market and they prefer their cukes very tiny. Baby pickle size. They eat these fresh. The customers wanting to make pickles want them at "pickle" size. Then we have some people who want them larger, more like a slicing cuke.

I noticed this year that our later planting really fizzled out about Oct. 1. Our market is open until the end of October. I probably should have had a 3rd planting to carry us through that last month. For us, it is about 6 weeks from direct seeding to 1st harvest.

We've never used row covers and we don't have a hoop house. At least not yet!

I hope this is helpful,

Carla




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