Homemade Pickles These blimp shaped cucumbers are medium green with small white spines and a crisp interior. You can pick them at 4cm (1") for baby sweet pickles or wait for bigger ones. In time, they can grow to around 13cm (5") long, but maintain their appealing pickle shape. Homemade Pickles cucumber seeds produce plants that are vigorous with excellent disease resistance and high yields. Provide a sturdy trellis for this rampant climber, and keep plants picked to keep more fruits coming over a long period. This cucumber can be eaten raw, but it is a little drier and crunchier than regular slicing cucumbers. These are the traits that make such high quality dill pickles. Matures in 60 days. (Open-pollinated seeds)
Wisconsin SMR-58 Developed at the University of Wisconsin in 1959, this ever-bearing variety produces masses of small crisp, sweet fruits over the whole growing season if kept well picked. One of the best cucumber varieties for pickling. In our trial results Wisconsin SMR-58 cucumber seeds performed better outdoors than in the greenhouse. Resistant to scab and Mosaic Virus. Be sure to keep your cucumber vines carefully picked so that the continue to produce over a long harvest season. Train your vines so that they grow vertically. This way, the fruits mature nice and straight, and evenly coloured on all sides. Matures in 55 days (Open-pollinated seeds)
How to Grow
35 seed/gram. Cucumbers grow best in a rich, warm, sandy loam soil. Before planting, work into the native soil 30 cm (12″) deep large amounts of garden compost or composted manure. As cooler soil will reduce germination and increase the chance of the seed rotting before it sprouts, wait until the soil has reached a temperature of at least 18 C (66 F) before planting. Mound the soil up into hills about 15-20 cm (6-8″) high and about 30-60 cm (12-24″) across. Space the hills about 120 cm (4′) apart. Sow the seed 2 cm (3/4″) deep with 6 to 8 seeds per hill then after the seed sprouts, thin to 3 or 4 plants per hill. If you have limited space, most cucumbers grow on trellises. Protect the plants from any late spring/early summer frosts and keep the plants evenly watered through the growing season. Even soil moisture is very important as cucumbers become very bitter if the plant becomes moisture stressed by hot dry weather. To prevent damage to the plant, harvest the cucumbers by cutting them from the vine with a sharp knife – do not pull or twist them from the vine.
