Salt and Pepper cucumber

As some of our loyal readers may recall, my  friend and frequent contributor to this blog, HerbDoc, had a stroke some months ago. Imagine my delight when I received this post from her in my email this morning. Welcome back, Kathy. You were missed!

It just dawned on me that in a few short weeks we’ll be perusing the seed catalogs for next year’s orders!  Where did the time go?

I’d be remiss if I didn’t report on the overwhelming success that I had with the Salt and Pepper cucumbers I ordered from Johnny’s Selected Seeds last spring.  As you recall, this was the first white-skinned pickling cuke to be developed with powdery mildew resistance.  Since that disease plagues my cukes every year, I didn’t care if the color was international orange!

The seeds were planted in an Earth Box with an attached trellis and germinated in a record two days.  The first fruits were indeed white with tiny black spines, but as the summer wore on, the harvest became a light golden color.  We picked hundreds of them right through mid October, and they were delicious on salads and as pickles.

Interestingly enough I planted zucchini in another Earth Box right next to the cukes.  I knew they shouldn’t be in such close proximity, but this was an experiment.  Sure enough in mid summer, the zucchini plants were attacked by the dastardly powdery mildew and by late August, they succumbed to the disease.  The cukes were untouched…nary a spot was seen!

Now I’m excited to see that the new Johnny’s catalog is offering Dundoo zucchini. This F1 is also spotlighted as a first in mildew resistance.  That adds at least 2 seed packages to my must haves for 2012!