Edible Landscape - Baby Cucumbers

I was introduced to these cucumbers by one of my staff, Aziz.  It is very popular with people from Kerinci, Sumatera and I later found out that it is also popular with "ulam" afficionados.  Aziz's mother obtained some seeds for me from Kerinci and I decided to experiment with it last year and when I took it to market early this year, it was very popular.  I love seeing the infusion of bright yellow flowers and it appears that my cats enjoy sitting near them in my current planting.

Being busy with the construction at the farm in the last six months, I didn't get to focus much on farming so in last month, I decided it was time to shift more attention to the farm and started planting this cucumber.  It takes about 3-5 days for the seeds to germinate once sown in soil,  It is a climber so I had to prepare a trellis-like structure.  By encouraging it to climb, it will ease the effort during harvesting as well as keeping the cucumbers nice and clean.

I prepared the soil by adding mulch, burnt organic matter and vermicompost as well turning the soil many times to ensure it all mixed well as well as removing unwanted matter.  I enjoyed tracking the progress of this plant as it started to produce more leaves and beautiful yellow flowers, the precursor to the cucumbers.  On alternate days, I will adjust the "arms and legs" of this plant so that it will climb in such a way to ease my efforts when it comes time to pick the cucumbers as well as to create a beautiful arbor in about a months time, creating a lovely addition to the landscape.  The effort was well worth it when in about 2 weeks, the flowers began to blossom.

Three weeks later I noticed that the cucumbers had began to form as well as many flowers were blossoming and more buds forming.  The cucumbers seem to grow at a rather quick rate when in just a few days they increase in size to just about the right size to eat.  I find that it is best to eat them when their skins just smooth-out and about 4 inches or 10-11cm in length.

It is best eaten within 2 days of harvesting and has a nice crisp, sweet taste to it.  I enjoy just munching on them, especially on hot days.  Because of its smaller size, I am never left with half-cut cucumbers in the fridge - as what normally happens with the larger cucumbers.  For salad lovers, I recommend trying this cucumber variety.  These plants lasts about 100 days so I guess in about 2 months time, I will have to start new plants in a different location on the farm, creating a new rotation of the land use at the farm.