2024-2025 Newsletter – The Cucumberer

Cucumberer: Noun. A made-up name for a person who enjoys growing or consuming an abundance of cucumbers.

At last! – Here are our New Varieties for 2024-2025:

Cuccummaru de San Donato: (C. melo) An incredible round early mildly sweet productive cucumber-melon with light green skin with spots of dark. Fruit skin is crisp with a white interior revealing a savory tender flesh that does not cause indigestion as other cucumbers can. While this Italian cucumber-melon begins bushy, it continues to growing and produce for a long harvest. Heat loving vines produce hermaphrodite female flowers that are parthenocarpic – setting fruit without pollination. Though there was previously some bitterness, we worked for several years to ensure that the population is bitter-free.

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Meloncella di Martina Franca: (C. melo) An incredible round early mildly sweet productive cucumber-melon with light green skin with spots of dark. Fruit skin is crisp with a white interior revealing a savory tender flesh that is bitter-free and does not cause indigestion as other cucumbers can. While this Italian cucumber-melon begins bushy, it continues to growing and produce for a long harvest. Heat loving vines produce hermaphrodite female flowers that are parthenocarpic – setting fruit without pollination.

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Scopattizo di San Luigi: (Limited Availability – see our offer at the end) (C. melo var adzur) A round carosello variety that is very similar to the Barattiere. A favorite of native Italians, this fine-textured variety is productive and delicious. While they can be trellised, they do best when provided space to sprawl. From Fabio Pellegrini. It took me three years of work to get the seed to nearly marketable germination. Seed packet includes 24 seeds and growing instructions.

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Cretan Greek Cucumbermelon: (Limited Availability – see our offer at the end) (C. melo var adzur) A light green cucumbermelon with consistently scalloped cylindrical fruit. Early setting vines deliver a productive crop of cucumbers with high quality flesh when picked around 1.5-2 inches in diameter. Seed packet includes 24 seeds and growing instructions.

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Timun Krai: (C. melo var conomon) Ideal for hot humid climates, this Indonesian variety produces elongated striped cucumbers. The fruit is crisp, yet slightly tender and tasty. While Asian pickling melons usually produces bitter fruit, this one rarely does. Seed packet includes 24 seeds and growing instructions.

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Conqueror English Cucumber: (Limited Availability – see our offer at the end) (C. sativus) A very long English-type cucumber with parthenocarpic fruit that sets without pollination. Fruit can become bitter in hot dry climates, so probably best for cooler climates. Seed packet includes 24 seeds and growing instructions.

> Quick Reminder – we are Reopening November 29th <

Here is what we have Regrown to be back in stock:

Palestinian Faqous

Carosello Tondo Barese

And in 2024 we grew Fresh Seed of the following:

Ayra

Tondo Manduria

Carosello Spuredda Scuro Leccese

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Lastly, here are a few varieties we tried, but had Problems with producing seed or germinating:

-Ethiopian Gherkin, Zambian Gherkin and the English Telegraph – Will be offering an English Telegraph substitute instead or try the Conqueror.

Growers Corner (Meet This Year’s Growers)

A couple of individuals grew for us this year. Though both of them are a little shy when it comes to their picture being taken, each provided a description of themself as a grower and a picture of the cucumber variety being grown for seed.

Nathaniel Z. is from the Capital Region in New York and is working to grow in high tunnel greenhouses. He was able to grow out some Spuredda Scuro Leccese for me this year.

Christy H. has been working on growing vegetables at the Farm Stand at Otow Orchard since 2005. She enjoys utilizing organic methods and growing tomatoes and squash, even though the orchard is not a certified organic.

Here are some Associated Videos and Content:

Here you will find dozens of YouTube videos from this year highlighting nearly each of this year’s cucumber varieties along with a few that contain primarily educational content. So feel free to binge watch cucumber videos and subscribe to Cucumber Shop’s YouTube Page.

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Podcast: Here’s a podcast from talking with Diego of the Farm Small Farm Small Podcast about what it takes to start and run a small seed business. We should be putting out more podcasts over the next few months, including some on individual cucumber varieties. If you want to listen in, here are a couple of ways to hear this podcast.

https://podcasts.apple.com/…/farm-small…/id1271270819

Other Cucumber Happenings:

Penn State Market Trial: Dr. Francesco Di Gioia of Penn State reached out to Cucumber Shop and performed a Market Trials for farmers, chefs and small growers to determine the marketability of carosello cucumber varieties around State College and the surrounding area.

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Oregon State University Dry Cropping Trial: Lucas Nebert of Oregon State University’s (OSU) Dry Farming Project trialed a handful of our immature melon varieties that are grown as cucumbers.

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On August 6^th, Jay from Cucumber Shop presented about “Confronting Climate Concerns With Indigenous Heritage Cucurbit Varieties” at the 2024 Seed Saver’s Exchange “Growing Together: Sharing Seed, Stories and Skills” conference.

Cucumber Shop was at the Culinary Breeding Network’s Vegetable Variety Showcase back on September 8th: Thanks to the kindness of Lucas Nebert of OSU’s Dry Farming Project for growing out fruit to share with everyone there. Lucas was so patient with my boundless enthusiasm.

New Artwork:

Here are a couple carosello cucumber varieties as produced by Yessica Leano, who created these for Cucumber Shop:

2024-2025 Newsletter Offer

Finally, I would like to thank you for your support of our little Cucumber Shop and for signing up for this yearly newsletter. While I would love to offer lower prices, Cucumber Shop requires a regular income to be able to pay for everything needed to keep the business going. But we can offer you access. On January 20^th, we will offer seed of those varieties that we have very limited supplies of, including the following:

-Regular Dark Armenian Cucumber

-Cretan Cucumbermelon (Currently available in limited quantity)

-Scopattizo di San Luigi (Worked for 3 years to release this delicious variety)

-Conqueror Cucumber (An extremely productive English Greenhouse variety, similar to English Telegraph)