I am only sort of into cucumbers. If you slather them with some kind of bad-for-you dip, or use them to flavor water, then I really enjoy them. But if you just hand me a bit of cucumber, I’d rather not. Trust me you, I want to love cucumbers because they are light and refreshing and make you stay skinny but, they just don’t quite do it for me plain.
So, it make sense that I am growing a giant Armenian cucumber plant, right? Not really. Sandra bought one of those six packs last winter from some nursery and gave me two of the plants. Now, I rarely, if ever, reject a plant. So, I stuffed the two plants in with my strawberries. One of the plants met an early death, but the other, well, that is a whole other story. It is mega!
What’s that? You’ve never heard of an Armenian cucumber. Well, me either. I am still trying to figure out why Sandra bought this plant in the first place. I mean, both of us live in little apartments and have very limited growing spaces. Most cucumbers need to be trellised, and that, my dear reader, is just too much work.
Now, the Armenian cucumber is actually not really a cucumber. It’s in the melon family and just tastes and sort of looks like a cucumber—a mega cucumber. These babies can be 3 feet long! According to my sources, if you have ever seen “Pickled Wild Cucumber” in a middle eastern store, you were looking at Armenian Cucumber. Anyone had this delicacy?
They are thin skinned and don’t need to be peeled. Just wash, slice, and enjoy. My plant has so far yielded one major cucumber. I think it was over a foot when I picked it. I had to give half to my mom because no way was this girl going to eat over a foot of cucumber.
Pollination Troubles-
I am a tad concerned that I have only had one mature fruit. There are loads and loads of flowers and the darn plant keeps getting bigger and bigger. It has attached itself to several of my tomato plants and is growing down and over my fencing. It doesn’t have to be trellised (if you trellis the plant, it will give you really straight fruits, if you let it go wild, the fruit will curve) but my plant is in such a place that it can cascade down several feet. So, I’ve been trying to pollinate the plant by pulling off the male flowers and rubbing them into the female flowers. Weird, I know. Especially since there is a serious ant farm living in the planter with the strawberries and cucumber. I figured with all these ants walking up and down the stalks, the flowers would surely be pollinated. Not so much.
Pest Problems-
Damn those spider mites. They are loving the Armenian cucumber, and strangely, the ants are loving the spider mites. Have you ever heard of bug-eating ants? I have been trying to organically control the spider mite population by spraying them with jets of water. It actually seems to be working.
Overall, I’d say this is a very satisfying plant to grow. It just gets so big, there is something new to look at every day. So if you are into cucumbers and giant plants, this one is for you. AND it seems to enjoy growing in a container.
I’ll try to post a picture the next time I pick one of them.
