Hello! I am looking for some lemon cucumber seeds and will trade tigger melon for them plus some extras - heirloom Anna Russian tomatoes and squash. If you also have heirloom carrots to trade I'll throw in some charentais melon seeds and a couple surprises! I'd like to just do one trade with this and am really desperate for some lemon cukes so if you'd rather have charentais melon or anything else, let me know! Thanks all, sky

Hey, me again! I guess I got lucky because out of the 8 seeds I planted, 3 are sprouting up! I wasn't sure because it didn't look like what I thought, but I found a picture of one sprouting up, and that's exactly what I've got growing. Thanks a lot =) By the way, what is dry storage? I could easily look it up I suppose..but you guys answer it better.

The quick answers: Larry, Save from the largest, oldest and most mature Armenian cuke you can in order to ensure the seeds have matured inside the fruit. Dorothy, Yes, the Armenians can cross with cantaloupes, muskmelons and watermelons. Charlotte, Armenian cucumbers, being in the melon genus, will not cross with cucumbers, which are in their own genus, even though all of them are in the cucurbit family. The longer answer: Armenian cucumbers are Cucumis melo so they will cross with any other melon or melon-like fruit that also is a member of the C. melo family, but they will not cross with other Cucurbit family members in other genuses. Cucumis melo includes 7 distinctive types of melons, some of which are used more like cucumbers, and some of which are not sweet. C. melo includes these groups: Cantalupensis (true cantaloupes); Reticulatus (muskmelons, often called cantaloupes in the USA), Inodorus (aka Winter Melons); Conomon, Dudaim, Flexuosum (includes Armenican cukes); and Citrullus lanatum (all watermelons). So, if you grow Armenian cukes close to melons from any of the C. melo groups and you don't bag blossoms, you could get crossed seed. Cucumis melo will not cross with true cucumbers which are in the Cucurbitaceae family with them but which belong in a different genus. They also won't cross with wax melon, jelly melon, gourds, squashes, pumpkins, burr cucumbers (gherkins), luffa gourds, or chayote. The problem with saving seeds from anything in the C. melo family is that they are outcrossing, relying on bees and small flies for pollination. So, if you grow more than one member of the C. melo family, and they are in bloom at the same time, you can get crossed seed unless you are growing them well-isolated from one another, or hand-pollinate and bag your blossoms, or cage your plants. To save the seed, Larry, let the Armenian cuke get overripe, which means it will get very large and fairly big around and the flesh will lose whatever good eating quality it once had. If you let the Armenian cuke get very mature, it usually will be very seedy, the skin will turn either light green or almost a tan as Dorothy mentioned, and the ridges flatten out a lot. The flesh is still mostly green, but in some of mine that I let get that mature (I feed the big ones to the deer and the chickens as summertime treats), some of the most mature flesh near the seeds has a pale orange tinge to it. After cutting open the Armenian cuke, scoop out all the seeds, and soak/rinse in water and then strain off all the bits of flesh and stuff and let the seeds dry very well before storing them. Hope this helps, Dawn

Is is already really overripe? If so being in the fridge is ok. Cucumber seeds should be fermented like tomato seeds. The good ones will be fat and not bendy. I've not really paid attention when saving cucumber seeds, but before fermenting, they might float even if good since they have the gel around them. Remy