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Armenian cukes and yard long beans

13 years ago

Can I use these as cucumbers or only in recipes where summer squash is used? Have a feeling we will have lots soon, barring the SVB. Also, can I use yard longs and asparagus beans in place of green beans for recipes such as dilly beans and 3 bean salad? I've never grown any of these but apparently they like the desert. Or at least my garden.

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Comments (6)

denninmi
13 years ago
They ARE cucumbers. Technically, they are Cucumis melo, while regular cucumbers are C. sativa, and if your fail to pick them will ultimately mature into something sort of like a banana melon but not sweet, but picked young, until the seeds start to harden, they taste like any other cucumber and can be used for any use, pickles, whatever.

Yard longs/asparagus beans have a slightly different flavor than regular beans, almost a faint mushroom-like flavor that is very delicious, but delicate. In pickled dilly beans I'd doubt you'd notice any difference at all. You might, however, want to do just a very small trial batch, because the yard longs are more tender than regular beans, and might get too mushy. I have only frozen mine, never canned them.
tracydr
Original Author
13 years ago
I can hardly wait! It's been a long time since I've had home grown cukes, farm fresh beans and homemade pickles.
Keep forgetting to soak my okra seeds so I can replant. I had them in the front garden and a bunny ate them. They will need to go in the back with the garden Doberman to watch over them. The bunnies have demolished my front garden this week for some reason, even eating some of the green onions and basil.
Had store bought fava beans for the first time tonight. They will be in the garden this winter for sure!
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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
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For Florida, I would recommend the variety "3-feet-plus" (from Evergreen Y.H.). It was sent to me by a trader from Florida, where it had done well. Through an accidental observation, I might have found out why - it seems to have some resistance to salt in the soil. I planted it on a plot where a pool had been drained previously, and other yardlongs (and other vegetables) had languished... "3-feet-plus" produced heavily. The beans are very firm in texture, and have good flavor.
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Sandhill Preservation sells seed of a selected variety of Armenian cucumber called "The Duke" (not available this year, though). There is a "Painted Serpent" cucumber which is also a melon. It has smoother skin than "Armenian" with dark and light green stripes. Not prolific in my garden. A little on the sweet side. Among "real" cucumbers, I have found "Summer Dance" to be the most heat-tolerant here, but I'm not sure they'd make it in Phoenix. Must be trellised or grown in part shade here. You can buy seed from Pinetree.
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John__ShowMe__USA
12 years ago
Been googling and searching for an hour trying to find something to help attract bees to my cuke plants... (it can get rather confusing inside my pointy head :) Was thinking yellow flowers of some kind, maybe yellow morning glories. Somehow I ended up here.

tracydr,

How did they turn out? On one forum it was noted that they flower profusely. Did you pickle any? It gets hot here in Misery too & they supposedly do well in heat.

john
tracydr
Original Author
12 years ago
I didn't pickle any last year, we ate them all fresh. I did pickle some okra which was delicious. Hoping to have enough extra to pickle this year as I planted more plants. I'm also going to plant pickling cukes for the fall season in another month, hoping to finally get that right. Cucumbers are fussy in AZ.
I have found that lemon cukes seem at least as heat resistant as Armenians but I only planted them about 5 weeks ago and they are just now starting to set fruit, so I haunt tasted them yet.
tracydr
Original Author
12 years ago
Hey John? What did you find to attract the bees? I've heard yellow flowers, basil ( Thai basil seems to flower more for me), or even cups of sugar water.
I have tons of bees, probably from all the citrus grown in our neighborhood. I don't think much poison is used in backyards on the citrus trees, giving us a very healthy bee population.
I was picking squash blossoms for soup recently and the blossoms were closed, I ended up picking one with a bee trapped inside!
John__ShowMe__USA
12 years ago
Attracting bees is a real problem around here the last 10-12 years. And the leopard frogs have disappeared. There are bees around, but they feed on specific blooming plants and ignore others which is why I was thinking yellow flowers to match the cukes.

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