Salt and Pepper Cucumber

Cucumbers (Cucumis sativus) just might be one of civilization's oldest crops. Thought to be native to India, this fruit of a creeping vine with wide leaves and thin tendrils was crunched on by people throughout history in both the Old and New World from across the Middle East, Western Asia to the lands encompassing the Roman and Greek empires. Columbus planted cucumbers in Haiti in 1494. Ferdinand De Soto reported they were growing in Florida when he arrived.

 

Providing 4% of our daily Potassium and Magnesium requirements at only 16 calories a cup, I think sliced “cukes” are a great substitute for chips, especially when dipped in ranch dressing. Hence, the reason this plant has a prized spot in my raised vegetable bed this summer.

 

Usually, I choose the Boston Pickling cucumber for such a compact growing space. But this year I discovered the Salt and Pepper cucumber at a Vacaville nursery. I couldn't be happier with this cultivar named for its white skin peppered with tiny black spines. Here are a couple of reasons why:

 

1. Resistance to mildew. Salt and Pepper was developed at Cornell University and bred specifically for disease resistance. If this is true, I'll know soon enough after the arrival of cooler fall weather in which powdery mildew thrives.

 

2. Small cylindrical size, thin skin.

 

3. Crunchy, sweet taste, small seeds.

Recalling that ancient folklore saying — “cool as a cucumber” — I now wonder if there's some truth to it. Supposedly, science confirmed in 1970 that air temperature is 20 degrees cooler inside a cucumber field. All I know for sure is that one scalding hot July afternoon I picked and brought inside a couple handfuls of my harvest, rather surprised they weren't boiled to a mush but actually were quite cool to the touch of my very warm hand.

 

For a PDF file published by HortScience Vol. 47(3) March 2012 on the development of Salt and Pepper, visit http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/content/47/3/427.short

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