Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi,
Just wondering if I'm sabotaging myself. Currently growing:
- a Petita (all female - 3 lovely unbitter fruit so far),
- Crystal Lemon (covered in masses of flowers and some with cucumbers forming don't know if M/F etc)
- a Tyria (all female - not yet flowering - sown later) and
- a Marketmore (producing small fruits and loathe to put it outside as have some out there already and it seems to be enjoying the GH)

I know it's excessive in a small greenhouse but my kids are rampant Cucumber eaters and take them in for their class etc and found that only 2 plants last year wasn't enough.

My question is will the male flowers from the marketmore and Crystal L ruin the other two and should I kick them outside?
Many thanks for reading this missive.

I hope somebody will have the answer to this question because I have 3 mini-type cucumbers and one Burpee Hybrid growing close to each other in an outside border and wonder whether the same would apply.

I don't have a definite answer. I don't eat much Cucumber but my wife loves them and we give quite a number away. I grow all female ones fairly early and they are in my small greenhouse that is initially heated. Last year we also grew Parisian Pickling and Crystal Apple and some extra all female in the large cold greenhouse. My wife thought some of the all female from these plants were a bit bitter so this year we haven't mixed them up.

Crystal apple requires the male flowers for pollination. It is possible that the all female flowered one might be adversely affected if it was pollinated by flowering insects. You could prevent this by tying a small paper bag over the all-female cucumbers, or use some environmesh to enclose the all-female. Perhaps see what happens first.

Thanks for the ideas - wondered if I should contact the seed company as they should know - shouldn't they although bet they'll err on the side of caution and say remove the non all female ones.
Thanks.