EVERYTHING You Need To Know About Cucumber Types

Finding a cucumber variety that matches your growing conditions and your goals is the BIGGEST factor in achieving a successful cucumber harvest. On the bright side, cucumber varieties are plentiful and there’s probably more than one out there that matches exactly what you need. On the other hand, it can be extremely challenging to select the right cucumber variety without a ton of research; more than any other vegetable we grow, cucumber varieties possess a huge array of meaningful differences that aren’t always obvious until your months into a wasted growing season.
So let’s jump into the wild world of cucumbers and look at all the important traits and characteristics you need to understand before choosing a variety.
Chapters
00:00 parthenocarpic cucumbers
00:20 gynoecious vs. monoecious cucumbers
07:04 burpless or bitter free cucumbers
09:11 greenhouse cucumbers
10:33 thin or thick skin cucumbers
11:19 beit alpha type cucumbers
13:54 seedless cucumbers
14:32 “non cucumber” cucumbers
15:04 heat Tolerance
15:38 disease Resistance
16:52 cucumber productivity
18:26 vining & bush cucumbers
19:03 Use Case
Parthenocarpy:
Cucumbers are among a small group of plants that can exhibit parthenocarpy. Parthenocarpy is the ability for a plant to produce fruit without pollination of the ovules. - these little baby fruits at the bottom of a female flower. That is huge. What it means is that a parthenocarpic cucumber variety does not require pollen transfer from a male flower to a female flower in order to grow the fruit on the female flower to maturity.
Gynoecious vs. monoecious cucumbers:
Most cucumbers produce both male and female flowers on the same plant. Same as other cucurbits like squash and this melon. So an individual plant has all it needs in order to fruit but not a single flower. Unless of course it’s one of those parthenocarpic varieties. That quality of being able to produce fruit from a single plant that produces both male and female flowers is referred to as monoecious.
But there’s yet another category and this is where it gets interesting. Gynoecious plants produce only or mostly female flowers and you guessed it, some cucumber plants are gynoecious.
Burpless or bitter free cucumbers:
Have you ever heard the term burpless used to describe a cucumber?
I definitely recommend growing varieties labeled as bitterfree or bitterless or just plain old not bitter. Some of the bitterness is just down to how the plant is grown -watering, heat, all that good stuff - but growing varieties that are less prone to bitterness in the first place just makes it easier to grow tasty fruits.
Greenhouse or field grown cucumbers:
Many cucumber varieties were specifically bred to perform in the unique conditions found in a greenhouse or a semi protected environment like a hoop house or polytunnel.
Thin skin or thick skin cucumbers:
Thick skin on a cucumber fruit can be very useful. It can make the fruit hardier and store better which is really important to commercial growers. It also has a major downside
Beit alpha type cucumbers:
The Beit Alpha type cucumber has become a major sensation lately and unfortunately there’s a fair bit of misinformation out there about it.
Seedless cucumbers:
Many seedless cucumber varieties are just parthenocarpic; they don’t have seeds because the plant grew a fruit without waiting for it to be pollinated. So if that’s something you care about, you need to make sure the female flowers on your parthenocarpic plant don’t get pollinated.
“Non-cucumber” cucumbers:
There are a handful of other plants in the cucurbit family that aren’t true cucumbers but taste like them and make good cucumber substitutes. Two of the most popular include the armenian cucumber and cucamelons.
Productive Cucumbers:
Productivity describes how much cucumber harvest you’re going to get out of a plant. There are two straightforward factors you can look for to produce lots of cucumbers.
Vining vs. bush:
Like tomatoes, most cucumbers are large indeterminate vining varieties that will grow until frost or disease takes them but there are smaller determinate bush varieties out there too. You can grow the big vining varieties in a container.
#gardening #cucumbers #homesteading
Resources for Further Research
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Greenhouse cucumber production: edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication...
Evaluating 12 beit alpha cucumbers: svaec.ifas.ufl.edu/media/svae...
Evaluating hybrids in beit alpha cucumbers: www.researchgate.net/publicat...
Beit Alpha Cucumber Inbred Backcross Line Population: journals.ashs.org/hortsci/vie...
Photo Attributions:
Kiwi Photo by Pranjall Kumar on Unsplash