What could be nicer than a basket full of young green cucumbers fresh from the garden?  Well that is exactly what I had from my garden this summer.

And only from 6 cucumber seeds!

For some reason, we had been buying those long tunnel-grown cucumbers and it had been ages since I’d planted any of my own.

So early this summer I decided to give it a go. I chose a north-facing spot along the fence of my vegetable garden because I prefer cucumbers to climb.

Cucumbers that lie on the ground are liable to be eaten by insects.  And in any case, they always have a white underbelly where they have been in contact with the ground.

So I prepared the soil with lots of home grown compost. And then I bought a packet of cucumber seed and planted about 18 seeds.

It wasn’t a big patch as I reckoned we only needed one or two cucumbers a day.

In a few days the seedlings sprouted.  And once they were well established I thinned them out to only six plants at about 50 cm apart. Read more →