Our first cucumber
We had family around this weekend, so took in a bumper harvest of tomatoes. We’ve not picked any for a week, so the ones that had been close to ready last weekend were good and red. We made an enormous tomato salad using three different types – moneymaker, golden sunrise and gardener’s delight – and chopped in some home-grown basil, the second red onion and the first cucumber from our slightly disappointing crop of four.
The tomatoes are taking ages to mature this year. Whereas last year we had more than we could cope with from this point on, this year we have 18 plants with just one red tom between them after last night’s picking. Granted we have been grazing on them as they’ve become ready, but I can see us resorting to a green tomato chutney frenzy to use them up at the end of the season.
The red onion was small and a little underwhelming, and the only reason we plumped for the second rather than the first was that the first was rotten. Quite disappointing. The cucumber, on the other hand, was lovely. It had a much firmer texture than the watery fruits you buy in the shops and a crunch like a watermelon. It was succulent and had large white pips, but we had to peel off the skin.
I wouldn’t usually do that. The skin is as much a part of the fruit as the flesh, but it was thick and spiny and didn’t look in the least appetising. So I diced it into a little bowl and put it in the chickens’ coop. They went mad for it and it was gone inside of five minutes.
So at least it wasn’t wasted. Even if the cucumber itself did look like an ugly green slug in the grass.
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Hi,
Love the site. We rub the spikes off and eat the rest as we would a supermarket cucumber (with skin).
regards
Rich