What can make cucumbers bitter and other gardening questions

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

I just picked my first cuke of the year and sliced it to eat in my tuna sandwich, but it is slightly bitter. Is there anything I can do to prevent the rest of the crop from tasting like this? It didn't happen last year.

 

Second, everything in my garden is showing signs of emminent production except the pole beans. This year dh accidentally bought pole instead of bush, the vines just keep growing and growing, but no flowers are appearing. Do these usually take longer?

[TravelingChris]

Lack of consistent watering will make a cucumber bitter.

[NCMom]

Lack of consistent watering will make a cucumber bitter.

 

Yep, and as we learned last year, sometimes even with watering every. single. day. if it is super hot every day and never, ever rains then they will still be slightly bitter. I just put em in a salad and pour on the vinaigrette...

 

hth,

georgia

[Adrianne]

I just picked my first cuke of the year and sliced it to eat in my tuna sandwich, but it is slightly bitter. Is there anything I can do to prevent the rest of the crop from tasting like this? It didn't happen last year.

 

I did a little bit of digging about this last year after being tired of bitter cukes and I found that there are a number of factors that cause bitterness in cukes, variety being the largest factor. Bush, pickling cukes seems to go bitter faster. In addition to picklers, last year I grew a Burpee Hydrid and had no bitter cukes.

 

Second, everything in my garden is showing signs of emminent production except the pole beans. This year dh accidentally bought pole instead of bush, the vines just keep growing and growing, but no flowers are appearing. Do these usually take longer?

 

Yep they take longer but produce longer. I prefer pole over bush.

[Fourmother]

Ooo, Ooo, Ooo! I know this one! As soon as you harvest your cucumbers cut off the stem end. After a few minutes you'll see some clear gelatinous stuff. I don't know what this is, but if you scrape it off right away it will draw the bitterness out of the cucumber. Honestly, I was skeptical when someone first told me about this method. Now I'm a believer!