We planted a dozen cucumber vines back in the spring, hoping for a crop large enough for my wife Nancy to be able to can some of her special pickles.
Unfortunately, a groundhog had other ideas about the potential cucumber crop and single-handedly destroyed all but four vines. But the vines remaining did their best and ultimately delivered us about a half-bushel or so over a six-week span. They were the best eating cukes I’ve ever had.
They were hybrid variety cucumbers. When they first began to produce, I wasn’t impressed. They were in all sorts of strange shapes and sizes. Some were twisted, few were straight. They also had a propensity to grown between the fence wire with one half of the cuke ending up on one side and the other on the outside of the fence. Since it was a nylon net fence, I just cut the cukes out of their captivity and set them free.
Back to the eating part. The skin was sort of gnarly, but peeled easily and the flesh inside was crispy and sweet. We ate them in salads, we ate them plain, and I kept a bowl of cucumbers and onions mixed with cider vinegar and salt and pepper in the fridge almost the entire summer. We ate the last of our gnarly cukes last week and it was like losing an old friend.
If all our vines had dodged the groundhog bullet, I know we would have had enough for 20 pints of pickles, but canned or not, I intend to grow at least a few vines of the hybrids next year. Gnarly, but good!