Sour Cucumbers

[StephD]

This is my 2nd season with a vegetable garden. Last year I planted pickle cucumbers they only did ok. I planted without enough space since I thought they would climb a wood lattice trellis- silly me! I learned my lesson.

This year I have a ramped WIRE trellis with plenty of space. I planted a full sized variety of cucumbers and the vine is doing tremendously well. I'm getting plenty of fruits, but they taste HORRIBLE!! Very sour/bitter. They also are curling in half? I've never seen anything like this before- sour C shaped cucumbers.

Thoughts/tips/suggestions?

On the bright side, I've made several pints of refrigerator pickles with the ones I've picked so far and they taste super yummy after that. So worst case scenario I'm going to have a TON of pickles!

[imafan26]

Its been hot. It would help if you put your location and zone in your profile so we can answer your questions better.

Bitterness in cucumbers
1. Some varieties are bitter. I like the burpless ones, they are less bitter. When you read the seed attributes if they are less bitter they will tell you.
2. Stress can make cucumbers bitter. Overwatering and drought both will do it as will keeping the cucumbers on the vine too long. Uneven watering causes all kinds of problems.
3. The curling can be from a few problems
a. uneven moisture. Cucumbers like to be evenly moist not drying out and not waterlogged either. Adding mulch will help retain water and check frequently especially when it is hot, you may have to water more than once a day.
b. Temperatures need to be more than 60 degrees F.
c. Poor pollination can cause deformed fruit, crooking and the flower end bigger than the stem end. Parthenocarpic fruit will have larger than normal seeds and deformed fruit if they get pollinated.
d. cucumbers touching the ground
e. Sucking pests, aphids, whiteflies, thrips, mealy bugs, mites
f. Inadequate nutrition either from a problem with the roots not being able to take up the nutrients to not having enough in the soil available.

3.

[StephD]

Thanks! I'm in SE Wisconsin, so we've had some "heat" by our standards but for the most part have been in the mid to upper 80's.

They also are the burpless variety, which I chose on recommendation from the garden center lady as the variety she thinks has the best flavor.

[kayjay]

I had the same problem. The first 8 or 9 fruits were fine, and then all of the sudden they were disgustingly bitter. Like, I had to spit it out. I've never tasted anything so bitter. Maybe chomping a pill that you're not supposed to chew.

One of my favorite things to do with cucumbers is dehydrate them into chips, and that worked quite well to get rid of the bitterness. It was still there a little, but just barely. I drowned them in salsa to kill it a bit more. I hope your pickles work out. Your early ones might have been nicer-tasting like mine; and all of mine afterward were bitter.

[imafan26]

What cultivar did you plant? I find marketmore and poinsett to have a sour bite to them. I switched to Diva which is delicious and crisp and not bitter and Japanese cucumbers which are thin skinned and not bitter. Suyo Long is a Chinese variety that is crisp but has grooved skin. Shiyo kyuri translates to pickle cucumber and it is crisp and not bitter.

I have grown spacemaster, but it needs to be eaten the same way or it loses its crispness very fast.

Tasty Jade is another Japanese type cucumber.

General Lee is a widely variety with good disease resistance and wide adaptability.

Johnny seeds usually carries good quality cultivars.

Cucumbers like heat, but they like a lot of water too. Keeping the vines happy and growing will do a lot toward getting a tasty harvest.

[MichaelC]

My English cucumbers were terrible this year. The vines were awesome, but the fruit were awful, so I pulled them out. I did have good luck with lemon cukes and Persians this year.

[imafan26]

The cucumber house at work is having problems too. Mainly with the pest load. Aphids and mites are stunting and drying up the vines. There are a few cucumbers but most of them are curled and deformed. It is a problem with closed houses. Once the pests get in they are hard to get out since the predators are outside.

[StephD]

Thanks for all the tips! The pickles have turned out incredibly well and I made several batches before the powdery mildew took over the entire vine. I ended up pulling it to prevent disease spread. But next year I'll be trying a few types to see what I like best.

[MichaelC]

How did you solve the bitterness problem, did it solve itself, or did you just find that pickling them did the trick?

My Persians are still hanging on and making a few fruits per week. Some of the vines are green and some clearly diseased, but all producing healthy fruit. I predict they'll be done soon.

If you like soft skinned, mild cukes, I recommend you look into the variety "Tender Green." I grew it last summer, but couldn't find any starts this last year. I've got seeds for next year. It's the best I've ever tasted.

[Stefano]

Last summer me too I had some of my cucumbers that were bitters and I didn't never understood why. Then I gave those bitter cucumbers to my hens.

[imafan26]

Cucumbers need a lot of water and if you are growing where there has been less water available or it has been hotter and the cucumbers may be drying out faster, they will be more bitter. Self-watering containers help with that or deeper watering.

[CucGardener]

In the first year or two I lived down in Tucson, I initially had a lot of trouble with sour/bitter cucumbers. I knew that Persians do well in the heat, but all the Persian varieties I have ever had gave me indigestion. Later, I discovered that cucumber-melons such as the Armenian and Carosello cucumber varieties did much better in the heat. They are always bitter-free, burpless (don't cause indigestion) and only grow faster as the summer heat really sets in. After growing these a few years, I had a hard time going back to regular cucumber varieties.

Some of the cucumber-melon varieties I have found have stripes and vary in shape, color and length - depending upon the variety - and boast names such as "Carosello Massafra" and "Carosello Polignano". However, the dark green Armenian and the Painted Serpent are still some of my favorite.