Fall Cucumber Harvest

 

Warm autumn weather has extended the season of many summer vegetables including eggplant, snap beans, basil and tomatoes.  These plants are all producing copious amounts of fruit.  Cucumbers are also plentiful including the lemon cucumber (top) and Marketmore (center).  The "duckling" on the bottom is a Japanese cucumber, Hybrid Soarer, that was not fully pollinated.  Not much use in the kitchen, but a big hit at Kindergarten "show and tell".

Grilled Eggplant, Haloumi and Arugula Sandwich

Sandwich perfection. Cloud Nine eggplant, Matt's Wild Cherry tomatoes, arugula and Marketmore cucumbers from the garden. Grilled haloumi cheese and tahini yogurt sauce on grilled sourdough bread.  Try to stop at just one.

Grilled Eggplant, Haloumi and Arugula Sandwich with Yogurt Tahini Sauce
serves 2 (barely)

Ingredients

1/2      pound     Cloud Nine or Asian eggplant, sliced thinly
4         oz           Haloumi cheese, sliced
1                        cucumber, cut into strips
12                      cherry tomatoes (more or less)
1/2      cup         arugula (more or less -- ours is VERY strong)
1         cup         thick Greek yogurt
3         Tbs         tahini
1/2                    garlic clove, minced


Procedure

1. Prepare sauce:  combine yogurt, tahini and minced garlic.  Mix well.
2. Saute eggplant in olive oil over medium heat until golden brown.  Flip and repeat.  Remove to paper towels to dry.
3. In same pan, add 1 Tb butter and melt.  Add more olive oil if needed. Grill slices of sourdough until golden and crusty.  Flip and repeat.  Remove and set aside.
4. In same pan (add more butter and olive oil if needed), saute haloumi until melted and brown.  Flip and repeat.
5. Assemble sandwiches:  generously spread yogurt tahini sauce on both sides of bread.  Add eggplant, then haloumi, then tomatoes, cucumbers and arugula. 
   

Extreme vertical gardening

 

I planted Marketmore 76 cucumbers and Cosse Violette French Purple-Podded beans together at the back of our vegetable border.  This has turned out to be a very successful combination.  The vines are intertwined on the same bamboo poles, making for a very efficient use of space, and the cucumber and bean plants are all lush and healthy.  In fact, the vines have grown so big that they are now climbing up into our neighbor's crepe myrtle.  I'm not sure how I'm going to work out the harvesting -- there's no room for a ladder -- but Marketmore's bright yellow flowers combined with Cosse Violette's purple flowers and beans are gorgeous dripping down from the tree branches. 

Further complicating matters is the jungle of tomato plants that have taken over the front of the border.  It's tough to get through the tomatoes without damaging anything, but I squeezed in yesterday to pick the first of the Cosse Violette beans.  The beans are a gorgeous deep purple with a flat shape like a Romano. 

As I was stretching to reach the beans up in the tree branches, I discovered two huge cucumbers nearby.  I didn't think we had any Marketmores yet, but here were two that desperately needed to be harvested.   The smaller of the two was close to 8 inches long.  They had been hidden from view by the tomato plants until I was standing right next to them.

We had Jerusalem Salad (see my earlier posting for the Jerusalem Salad recipe) for lunch prepared with the Marketmores, plus a green bell pepper, dandelion greens, mizuna and arugula from the garden.  We sauteed the Cosse Violettes for an delicious side dish.   David was thrilled to have a meal without eggplant, and I have to say that few things taste as good as a salad made with freshly harvested vegetables.  I just hope we don't have to rent a cherry-picker to do the rest of the harvesting.

The Long Wait for a Lemon Cucumber

I started lemon cucumber seeds on May 1st. The seed packet warned that these cucumbers are late to mature. They weren't kidding. Four months later, the vines are finally flowering. As a point of comparison, I started Marketmore 76 and Hybrid Soarer seeds on July 12th, and these started flowering at the same time. I went out to hand-pollinate the cucumbers yesterday, and there were several big fat bumble bees already at work gathering pollen. It was fun to see those huge bees forcing their way into the tiny cucumber flowers. I decided to leave them to their work, and hope the females were successfully pollinated. I'll know in a few days.

Cucumbers fresh from the vine

When we lived in L.A., the only vegetable I grew was cucumber. Though it was many years ago, I still remember the plant slowing engulfing our tiny house, only to produce cucumbers that were far from remarkable. Everything seems to grow even bigger in our Houston garden than it did in L.A., so I was not about to plant cucumber vines here. I changed my mind when I found a bush-type cucumber, Bush Crop, at the nursery. Bush cucumbers still grow vines, but they are supposed to be fairly well-behaved and they do not need staking.

I planted the Bush Crop seedlings in mid-April, and they quickly turned into vines over 15 feet long and showed no signs of slowing down. It was not difficult to conclude that I had yet another plant that had been mis-labeled by the grower. The Mystery Tomato was a fortuitous purchase, and the cucumber plant has been as well. I e-mailed the nursery, and they guessed that the plants I purchased are Straight 8 or Marketmore. I looked up photos of both cucumbers on google, and I'm fairly certain that my plants are Straight 8.

I have been able to harvest a cucumber almost every day. They're not massive, but they are fresh and tasty. The vines quickly reached the top of their stakes, and then grew back down again. The advantage of staking is straight cucumbers, so I put in extra stakes to send the vines back up again. The set-up looks a bit bizarre, but it seems to be working with many new flowers and baby cukes on the tips of the vines.

We have lemon cucumbers started from Ferry-Morse seed back in May that are finally blooming. I'm really anxious to see and taste these unusual cucumbers. I also recently planted "Hybrid Soarer" seeds from Evergreen, and "Marketmore 76" from Park Seed. Despite my good luck so far, I've decided no more mystery plants for me. I'm sticking with my own seedlings. The plants seem to be growing quickly, and it will be interesting to conduct a taste test between all these cucumbers. I've got lots of stakes ready to keep them growing up (and back down again).