Specialty Cucumbers

More About Our Specialty Cucumbers

Among the novel, specialty market varieties in this category, are:

Japanese Types: these long cucumbers possess a combination of flavor and crunch that is superior to the more common American slicing types. Particularly unique among this group is the white-skinned ‘Itachi’, with its crisp, dry flesh ideal for stir-frying; and ‘Unagi’, a one-of-a-kind, smooth-skinned version of a Japanese cucumber with unmatched fresh flavor.

Unique Colors: Our specialty cucumber selection includes a variety of unique colors. We are especially excited about our trio of lime green cucumbers, which includes ‘Margarita’ (a Japanese type); ‘Mojito’; and ‘Gimlet’ (a snacking type). Other colors of note include white-skinned picklers (‘Quirk’ and ‘Salt and Pepper’) and the versatile round, yellow ‘Lemon’ cucumber.

Patio Cucumbers: We recommend ‘Quick Snack’ as a delicious patio cucumber appropriate for growing in containers. This variety has a compact vine and produces high yields of cocktail size cucumbers.

Cucumber Terminology

Knowing a few growing terms is helpful when shopping this category:

• Parthenocarpic: does not require pollination to set fruit. When successfully isolated from pollen, their fruits will be seedless. Can be either monoecious or gynoecious and are recommended for use in protected culture.
• Monoecious: Male and female flowers grow on the same plant.
• Gynoecious: Plants produce only female flowers. Varieties that are gynoecious but not parthenocarpic require a pollenizer to produce fruit, and so are sold blended with 10-15% seed of monoecious cucumbers in order to ensure pollination.

How to Grow Specialty Cucumbers

For growing guidance, we offer the following:

• Cucumbers Key Growing Information: a simple overview of essential growing information.
• Greenhouse Cucumber Production Tech Sheet: an in-depth growing guide for greenhouse production, from seeding to harvest.