Seasonality
Varieties
Varieties we grow and love:
- Stonewall and Marketpride- slicing cucumber
- Pickling – the little bumpy skinned ones…also known as Kirby
- Diva- a smooth skinned seedless variety…like a Middle Eastern slicing cuke
- Lemon- a round, yellow skinned cuke…tastes JUST like a cucumber, only named after it’s appearance. Heirloom variety
Storage
As always, fresh produce is most delicious and nutritious when consumed as close to the harvest date as possible.
Really fresh pickles and slicing cukes will still have some of their hairs or spines on them – except the varieties that don’t, like the Diva 😉
Cucumbers dry out really quickly…you can see the ends start to wrinkle a few days after harvest. They also don’t like to be too cold…so don’t store in them in the coldest spot in your fridge…they tend to smoosh faster when chilled.
The best way to store cucumbers long term is PICKLES. You can pickle any type of cucumber by hot process canning them or through the raw pack lactobacillus method and then refrigerated.
Culinary Info
– can be enjoyed in:
- raw
- salads
- on sandwiches
- pickles
- cucumber water
Tips for preparing:
Rinse, but our cucumbers have no paraffin, so no need to scrub or peel. There’s a lot of chlorophyll in cucumber skin, and that’s good for you. Also, often supermarket cucumbers are more mature that you really want, so the skin tends to be thicker and unpleasant. The reason why they harvest cukes oversized and blown up looking, with all the nice big seeds in them;), is back to the fact that they dehydrate quickly.
Of course you can and should peel your cucumbers, as you prefer. I like to prepare cucumbers entirely with my favorite vegetable peeler, making long ribbons, and toss them with a little dressing as a stand alone salad or on top of steak or a sandwich.
If you plan on cooking cucumbers, making tea sandwiches, or even some salads (like those that call for sour cream) it is beneficial to toss cucumber slices or ribbons in a little salt and allow them to drain for 20 minutes or so. Rinse the slices off and spread out over toweling to dry.
Also check out these great recipes:
