straw bells over transplants
This week we have transplanted the cucumber plants from the hotbed frame to the garden. As cucumber plants do not accommodate transplantation particularly well, the gardener must insure that they are not allowed to wilt when first placed in the garden. To prevent this we cover them with a straw bell for the first week or ten days until they strike root. If the weather turns rainy, the bells are removed.
Tendrils on climbing cucumber vine
The cucumber is, by nature, a climbing plant and nature has equipped them with tendrils for just this purpose. Providing them with a suitable trellis not only allows them to be grown in a fraction of the space required for plants that are allowed to ramble on the ground but the fruit are more uniformly formed and much easier to find.
It is only recently that cucumbers have been admitted to the English salad. In 1616 The Countrey Farme averred: “The use of Cucumbers is altogether hurtfull.” An entry in Samuel Pepys’ diary on Aug. 22, 1663 reads: “Mr. Newburne is dead of eating cowcumbers, of which, the other day, I heard another, I think Sir Nicholas Crisp’s son.” By the end of the century opinions were changing as attested by John Evelyn in 1699: “The Cucumber it self, now so universally eaten, being accounted little better than Poyson, even within our Memory.” Despite Evelyn’s optimism Landon Carter recorded in Virginia on July 24, 1766 his concern for his teenage daughter Judy; “She does bear ungovernable the whole summer through, eating extravagantly and late at night of cucumbers and all sorts of bilious trash.”
For a further explanation of the nature of cucumbers you are invited to examine Vegetable Gardening the Colonial Williamsburg way, 18th century methods for today’s organic gardeners (Rodale Press)
Dear Wesley,
Huzzah, Huzzah, Huzzah!!! 5May2013. It finally stopped raining for several days and the soil in my containers has dried enough to plant something. First in are the potatoes, onions and shallots. I hope to plant other root and cool weather vegetables between now and mid-week. It was 85 degrees in the early part of last week. I hope that was a fluke and not a sign of things to come. Today is more like a normal early May day with temps ranging in the mid 60s to low 70s.
Your blog postings have been very helpful and have been making me want to dig in the dirt, but all I had was MUD.
I’ll keep you informed of my progress.
Thanks for all you and the garden crew do,
Chris