Congrats on your cukes. The flower on the end is supposed to dry up and perish. By the time it's gone, pickling cukes are usually ready, but full size slicers need a day or two more. But I would remove the first fruits, which are usually not very good anyway. This will move your plants along toward their cucophonous destiny. Cukes bear in "tiers" as the vines run and develop lateral bearing branches, so you get more fruits as the plants get big. First two, then four, then eight, until the vines power down.

Thanks, everyone! Dad did eat it last night for a snack and said it did taste good. Joe, yes I am growing dill as well, but most of the people I talked to liked bread and butter pickles the most. I also have a bush slicing variety (Bushmaster) growing beside my pickling cuke plant. I'll take a picture later to show you. It's not real large, but hopefully to have some for slicing later in the season. This is my first year growing cucumbers and I think I'll grow them every year now! I'm going to make refrigerator pickles with them. Brad AKA Moonwolf

Thank you for the feedback. That does explain a lot. I've never grown a melon before. The plants are in a large kiddie pool with some tomatoes and eggplant. Hopefully, that is enough for the roots. But the vines are just starting to gain some major length and size so it may be that the plant is not large enough for fruitset yet. The blossoms on the lemon cukes really are difficult to distinguish. I was staring at them for a long time yesterday trying to figure out which were females. But at least the one I pollenated the day before was, it started to grow. I pollenated an armenian cuke yesterday so we will see if it is a pollenation problem. I do see lots of bees buzzing around my garden. I found them in the squash blossoms yesterday doing their job. Ania

Your cucumbers sounds pretty normal, and here is a link showing Oriental Express Cucumbers as you described. They really look like my Suhyo Long cucumbers. If they 12" or so, I would pick them. Dean