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Old July 24, 2019   #5
shule1
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West India burr gherkins are supposed to love humidity, I've read. They can handle aridity, though. They're quite early, and produce all season. They're a lot easier to grow than cucumbers in my garden. They were my first fruiting crop (other than strawberries), this year.

I wouldn't say they need to be picked when they're young. In my garden, the spines didn't get hard. It could be a soil or climate difference. In my garden, they just seem to get lemony tasting, leathery and chewy when they're older (and if they get too old, they taste like ascorbic acid), but they're still very edible IMO. The chewy, leathery ones are really good cooked: They have a nice texture (and taste) in stir fry, and are one of my top favorite vegetables for it (they rival cabbage, IMO).

Mine produced less in the hottest weather (but they still produced). I'm not sure what they're like in humid heat.

Also, the more you harvest, the more they produce. They rebound fast. It's possible that the reason they produced less in the heat was because I wasn't harvesting those that set in the heat until I could save seeds from them.

You can root cuttings of them in water, very quickly. I imagine they layer easily.

West India burr gherkins are larger than cucamelons, but they intimidate some people, while people seem to be drawn to cucamelons.

Some of my plants this year are very flat, and others are a bit bushier. My plant was flat last year. (So the flat trait, if genetic, may be dominant.)

When fully ripe (for seed-saving) mine changed a lighter color.

You might also be interested in Jamaican burr gherkins (which are supposed to be more prolific, and earlier, I think); Sand Hill Preservation Center sells it. Liso Calcutta (the one that Zeedman mentioned), is supposed to be larger and have fewer spines (but it's also a little later, and I read they can dry like gourds). I've seen pictures of some very large ones.

Beit Alpha handled heat better than other cucumbers for me, but I'm not sure what it's like in humidity.

Last edited by shule1; July 24, 2019 at 04:02 AM.
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