When to pick cucumbers?

[Tammy42]

I have cucumber salad bush, cucumbers in my garden and just noticed one has got huge in the last two weeks, it is approximately 3-4 inches long. How long do I let it grow to and what are the signs to know when it will be ready to pick? Thanks, Tammy

[jal_ut]

I am not familiar with that variety. Strait eight cukes are best at 8 inches. Pickling type cukes are best at 4 or 5 inches. Lemon cukes when they are slightly larger than golf balls.

Small cukes are covered with spines. When they are ready to pick the spines fall off.

Cukes can get quite large. The straight 8 varieties, though best for slicers at 8 inches, can grow 12-14 inches long and get 3 inches thick. When they get this large the seed is full grown and gets hard. Best to pick them when a bit more tender.

I just looked up the variety on Google. It says it is a straight 8 type. So 8 inches is the magic number. Enjoy.

[Tammy42]

Thanks jal_ut, thanks for looking up that info for me, I will let them get bigger then to 8 in., right now I'd say it is 3-4 inches. It's the biggest one so far, will have to go out there and look better to see if there are anymore that I may have missed. Tammy