Grow Your Own Magazine

Hi,

I'm growing a couple of cucumber plants under cover this year and I've been given some conflicting advice! My neighbour has told me you should only eat the male fruit (how can you tell?!) and another person has said this isnt true!! Can anyone offer any advice?

(Ps - the cucumbers are standard type similar to those you buy in the shops)

There's no such thing as male fruit! The fruit forms behind a female flower after it has been pollinated by pollen from a male flower. Unless you have one of the modern all-female types that don't need pollinating.
I think your neighbour is confused.

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either that or your neighbour has a dirty mind

I think your all confused. With frame cucumbers(greenhouse varieties eg Telegraph improved) you will find that there are 2 sorts of flower as Demeter says. One with a little fruit behind it(female). These will grow pollinated or not....Infact, You should REMOVE all male flowers daily as pollination causes bitterness. With the all female varieties the stupid price is offset by not having to undertake this chore.

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Paul

hi there

i have cucumber plants as well and all i can see is female flowers with little cucumbers growing, will i have seen male flowers before the female ones? i know for a fact that these seeds werent expensive, but perhaps they were i cant remember!! oops!! too many seeds.

Thanks for your help

SS

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I definately agree there Paulottie. A couple of quid for four seeds. Sheesh

Many thanks for all the advice - I tried growing cucumbers last year and they were very bitter - so perhaps as paulottie suggests i will remove the male flowers... will let you know how i get on .....

Not wanting to be contrary - but - although I've heard this lots of times about pollination being unnecessary / causing bitterness, it doesn't seem consistent with lots of the information I've seen. From what I've read (and this is just on the internet, pretty much, so not Writ In Stone), the reason for bitterness seems to be excessive levels of a bitter substance called cucurbitacin, which can be caused by various things such as drought or environmental stress as well as apparently genetic factors - but none of the sites I've read cited pollination as a cause, indeed most of them stated that cucumbers need to be pollinated for the fruit to grow!

And the reason for breeding plants with fewer or no male flowers was, apparently, that the older varieties produce 10-20 male flowers for every female one and the plant breeders decided that yields would increase if the plant wasn't wasting as much energy on male flowers.

As I say, this is based on Google not my non-existent plant science degree, so I don't want to contradict the experts and maybe I'm missing something - but??!!

[EDIT - Just re-readed your post Paulottie and noticed that you were talking specifically about frame cucumbers - do you mean the all-female ones? Is that a specific group of varieties that doesn't need pollinating? Confused about how the fruit grows without being pollinated - but willing to trust to the wonders of nature if you say it's true lol.]

Here are some of the websites I've seen this information on. Most of them repeat the same information, I've just cited lots so you know I've not got it off some dodgy article on wikipedia

Bitter Cucumbers A Temporary Problem
Bitter Cucumbers
Cuke Bitterness
Steps to avoid bitter cucumbers | Oakland Tribune | Find Articles at BNET.com
Cucumber
Cucumbers bitter? Why and what to do about it
Watering, fertilizing, and caring for garden Cucumber
AZ Master Gardener Manual: Cucumbers
Grow Your Own Cucumbers
Grow Gynoecious Cucumbers to Get the Most Production

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They don't increase the price of a packet much, they just reduce the number of seeds you get for your money - so it's easy not to notice that they are more expensive - at least until you come to sow them and realise you've got b-all seeds in the packet lol

They got me that way with my courgettes (F1 goldrush, about 6 in packet for about £2, goldrsch is right!!) - not a problem as I only wanted 2 plants, sowed 2 seeds, got 2 plants - but it did make me think I should maybe start reading the bit that tells you how many seeds are in the packet *before* buying, instead of just assuming that the standard number of seeds per pack is "loads"...

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thanks demeter

cor what a con!!!! the thing is though, is that the only flowers i have on these cucs have cuces growing behind them, so i must have the all female ones!!!!

very strange indeed, i cant even remember buying the seeds, i know i had lots of seeds in them and that i think i have some away to someone on here, oh well, this is all a learning curve and now i know about different varieties etc, then i will note more for next year, as long as they grow and are tasty then i dont care what they are called apart from "delicious" LOL

thanks for your help SS

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Don't listen to your neighbour Fastlearner. Obviously got the story all jumbled up.
Good luck with your cucumbers.

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From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

fastlearner,
just stick to growing female its a lot easier,im growing telegraph improved in my greenhouse,seeds were from B&Q,all female and they are huge.happy growing

Boy did i get a good deal then,I bought 1 cucumber plant £1.49.from haskins i am growing it in a container outside and picked and ate the first one yesterday.It was really sweet and there is another one ready for picking ,plus lots of other smaller ones at different sizes.If i had bought a packet it would have cost a lot more and i reckon that this one plant will keep us going for months!Do you think that if later on i save a few seeds that i would get a good plant or two for next year?I havent had to pick off any flowers as it said on the label when i bought it.

RHS: Grow your own Veg

I have certainly always removed the male flowers of my cucumbers and have never had problems with bitterness. The above RHS article is quite clear about male flower removal.

Doubt if your saved cucumber seed would be any good as it is probably an F1.

Ian

The RHS article is only talking about the all female, greenhouse type of cucumber.
Here is my take on the quite complicated situation at cucumber

So.... are we saying that with the all-female F1 type we should remove any male flowers that appear (but hopefully they won't) but with the other types you leave them on? Isn't it weird and confusing that pollination can make all-female types bitter but not normal types?!!

I'm growing Konsa outdoors - or at least I will be once they are hardened off and planted out, in the next couple of days - so I guess I will leave the male flowers on the plants.

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I only grow F1 all female plants (I have 60+ this year _ a mix of Pepinex 69 and Femspot). You should remove any male flowers that appear - though I have NEVER had any.
I also side shoot the plants to a height of 1m then above this let the side shoots develop to two leaves as they will produce cukes too. I always get bumper crops with my cukes - I was removing the bottom 5 leaves on my biggest plants today - this allows me to access the pots I water them through and let me see the cukes, the first of which should be ready for next week.

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Blog updated Wednesday November 13th

Demeter.

A 'frame' cucumber is a smoother skinned varietal grown indoors (and probably what you will see in the supermarket.) There are a couple of hybrid varieties available that don't have male flowers to remove...as I said. They are also a fussy crop, prone to spider mite and easy to make bitter through lack of attention and humidity.

A 'ridge' cucumber is generally prickly, smaller and intended to grown outdoors (often on mounds -hence the name) A classic example is 'Marketmore' there are also some in this category for pickling as gherkins. The selection of articles from the USA that you have selected to try and discredit my post appear to refer to these. You need not remove the flowers on these and bitterness is indeed solely down to poor cultivation.

There are now available a couple of Japanese varieties that are somewhere between the two sorts. (again no need for flower removal) They can be grown indoors or out and I am trialling 'Natsumikari f1' this year in both situations.

Neither of my degrees is in Horticulture nor biology; so I am no more qualified than a butcher to talk about pollination mechanics in curcubits. Yet, in my somewhat extensive library there are several manuals that confirm that the fertilized fruit of ordinary frame cucumbers is bitter. Perhaps you might try looking in the simple but excellent 'Veg and herb expert' by Dr. D.G. Hessayon if you don't believe me....he does, evidently, have a doctorate in the subject.

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Paul

Thanks Paul, I think I get it now
PS wasn't trying to "discredit" your post - just genuinely confused by the (apparently) conflicting information - as I say, I think I get it now, looks like I was comparing apples with oranges, so to speak, so no wonder the information was conflicting / different!

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totally baffled now,i got marketmore cukes,[in greenhouse] do i take male flowers of or not;just want a simple yes or no,
thanks john
ps i will go with the majority

Marketmore is an outdoor ("ridge") cucumber. Leave the male flowers on, they are needed for pollination. (It is only varieties of Cues bred for growing indoors that need male flowers removing - the fact you are growing an Outdoor Cucumber indoors is not a reason for removing the male flowers, its the variety that counts).

I don't imaging that there is any problem growing an outdoor Ridge cucumber in a greenhouse, but I don't know that for certain!

Simple No