Around the world, we are all in different stages of growing things.
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It sure is crispy around here in South Texas. I (Sincerely, Emily) have hope and check the weather report and radar to see if there is even a slight chance of rain anywhere in our future. Nope! I am thankful for my water barrels…. even though they are almost drained, they are helping me water the vegetable garden. Last week I posted a bit about the Armenian Cucumbers that we are harvesting. I’ll post more about what is growing out there later in the week.
Armenian Cucumber
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Throughout this week, we will post about the things that are growing in our gardens.
I (Alexandra) work for a network of large community gardens. I love seeing the explosion of life at this time of year!
What is growing in your garden right now?
Not Dabbling In Normal 
Wow that is the longest cue I’ve ever seen. As you say we are all at different stages of growing around the world. Here in Ireland we get so much rain that we don’t need water butts but for the last 2 weeks we have had glorious sunshine. It’s so lovely to have it but watering takes me around 3 hrs. Great blog. Eve
Eve – your gardens must be very lush and green right now. Especially after having 2 weeks of sunshine. Wow – 3 hours to water. Your gardens sound amazing. Wonderful! These Armenian cucumbers are really fun to watch grow. They are almost like zucchini – they can hide and then BAM they are huge!
Amazing looking cuke! Armenian you say? I am going to check to see if I can find some seeds around here for our coming season :).
Hi Fran – they are amazing. Yup Armenian cucumber – but they are really a variety of muskmelon (Cucumis melo). They are also known as yard-long cucumber, snake cucumber, snake melon. I have saved some seeds but I do not know what type of seeds my neighbor planted, not sure if they will be altered or if they will grow true. Will try and see. Hopefully I will remember next Spring! You may even find it sold in an Asian grocery store – then you can eat it and get seeds. If I pick them long and skinny – no seeds, but if they are a little more fat they start to separate inside and have seeds. I would love to send you seeds, but I imagine customs would not like that!!!
Here is a link to some seeds
http://www.seedsofchange.com/quickfacts.aspx?c=9610&cat=146#ad-image-ProductDetail1_aFirstImage
Customs would have a blue fit! ;). Our Asian grocery stores run to the mundane here in Tassie but some of them are starting to get a bit more adventurous as more Korean and Hmong people seem to be on the up and that can ONLY be a good thing :). My daughters are Korean food freaks and have a fridge full of kimchi in various stages of done. I dabble in it but they have hurled themselves into it in a huge way. Its a very healthy cuisine. I want to grow all kinds of exotics but predominately exotics that are going to love our temperature here. I got an amazing crop of Lebanese cucumbers last year so can’t see why the Armenian muskified version wouldn’t do well here 🙂 Cheers for the heads up 🙂
I remember that you mentioned that Steve didn’t like the smell when you were fermenting kimchi on the counter…. I think your daughters should gift you with at least one large jar of kimchi – ready to eat – when ever you visit them! (and take care of their dog, etc) (and bring bags of veggies for them) Kimchi sounds like a pretty fair deal….. Send me their email and I will drop the hint for you! ha
I would have dropped my own (not so subtle) hint IF they didn’t macerate all kinds of small fishy flippy things along with the cabbage making it entirely vegan unfriendly :(.
Oh Man! Yes, very vegan unfriendly.
I love your Armenian cucumber picture. They do so well in the heat. I grow quite a few cucumber-melons like Armenian that love the heat and are bitter-free.
There are quite a selection of cucumbers out there that are related to the Armenian cucumbers that are often better-tasting and will often suit the pallets of those who don’t care for the crunchy texture of the regular Armenian cucumber.
HI Jay – thanks for stopping by. I would live to hear about the other cucumbers out there that you mentioned being related to the Armenian cucumber (and I am sure some of the reader would also!) Please feel free to comment and let us know (and add a link to the findings you write about on your blog!)