Cucumbers from seed

 

Cucumbers get a 4/5. Nice.

Cucumbers are another really easy plant to grow from seed. Mid may I popped about 3 seeds per compartment in a seeding block about 1/4 inch deep and by the first of June I had these.

Most of them germinated. sweet.

I'm sorry I don't have any intermediate photos (my camera got swiped) but I can tell you that I was a little in love with this plant. It extends little feeler things (that I don't know the name of) and these will wrap round anything and everything to give it support. Going to check on them everyday was like watching a dance in slow motion, the practical side of this is that building a trellis for them is very easy. They use poles, chicken wire and even garden furniture so you don't have to worry too much about support.

They climb over anything even each other and themselves.

So that's Mid may to 1st august. So from seed I had my first harvest after two months and a half. Nice.

Harvest them just when they start to go yellow for the best taste

They don't do as well in the hard limestone soil I have  in my bed at the moment. But they manage!

Pop them in the ground, keep them watered, build *any* kind of support structure for them (A tall stick lodged firmly in the pot will do) and wait. So easy.

Cucumbers and their food potential. Let's score!

Easy to germinate     
Easy to grow          
Harvest size          
Economy of space      
Easy to harvest seeds  

 

To explain those scores:

• Most seeds germinate with no special treatment or weather conditions. 
• Very easy to grow but it still needs support of some sort.
• I haven't finished the harvest but everyone says the same thing: I will get many cucumbers per plant and due to their size that's a lot of food.
• They don't take very large pots to grow and they will grow in any direction and into any spare space.
• Botanically it's a fruit, so the seeds are available when you eat.

This is another plant I'm going to try growing out of season due to growing in a hot climate. I'll keep you updated!

As always comment if you think anything is wrong or I've left something vital out!

Rocket or Arugula from seed

I didn't want to rate this one because at the end of the day Rocket or Arugula or Roquette or Rucola has as many uses as it has names and its use as a salad leaf is the hardest to pull off. (also you don't get seeds from it this way)

I do have a few ideas for growing it in a container using higher seed quantities in order to produce a bumper harvest of the baby leaves you need for salad but that's a different story.

1 month from seed to an ideal salad harvest but is that feeding you? not really.

If left to its own devices its clearest functions are that of a soil breaker/green manure or a herb. It grows pretty much like a weed too, which I think is brilliant.

Delicate seedlings of rocket growing in the nastiest soil I know.

 

Let me explain the whole soil breaker thing. I sowed the seeds directly into my bed which I now know contained the most nutrient deficient/clay filled/tough soil in the world (I may be exaggerating). The soil was literally impossible to move with my bare hands and things were hard pressed to grow in it. However, rocket could break through the tough soil and survive nicely.

About 2/3 weeks after seeding

It's quite amazing that those little guys breached the surface, not many others did (3 spinach plants out of 40 odd seedlings were the only others) and most transplants died! So this is what I mean by a soil breaker, they can thrive in tough soil and their roots assist in breaking it up into 'light', 'fluffy' stuff.

So if it was not harvested and instead used as a green manure one could quickly grow it in tough soil and then churn the large plants into the earth as fertilizer. The earth which is now a bit looser thanks to the roots. Also you can pick leaves off to your hearts content once it's older to use as a bitter, peppery herb so it's not 'idle' while it waits to do its job as a fertilizer.

3 months of growing, It was this big 2 months ago albeit less dense

If we're considering growing rocket specifically as a herb for use in pestos or anything else requiring large quantities of the stuff then it's about 2 months from seed to harvest and that's including lots of picking along the way and a bounty of seeds at the end.

These babies are plug and play when it comes to growing, just scatter on the ground and cover with a thin layer of soil and water. Now wait. 

 

And finally you get a nice bunch of the herbs, bear in mind this bushel would have been larger if I hadn't sowed so thinly I just didn't know how voracious this plant was at the time.

The finished crop has a distinct peppery taste that really does liven up a salad in small quantities but when I say small I mean SMALL. If you want to use more than a leaf or two you really need the baby stuff. However it's great as a component in pesto and I've found I can use it to make the most delicious green curry (which is probably very nutritious too)