Cucumber Contest!

• Try various types of cucumber (Give yourself 1 pt. for each type) 
• Match supply to demand (2 pts. for using at least 80% of your crop)
• Create a great layout (2 pts. for planning well)
• Keep a calendar of planting and harvest time (2 pts. for keeping track)
• Control pests organically (3 pts. for avoiding chemicals)
• Try new salads (1 pt. for each salad )
• Check the competition (try new kinds of cucumber from farmer's markets & friends) (1 pt. for each kind tried) 
• Make pickles (1 pt. for each recipe)
• Use culls  (2 pts. for picking 100% weekly; 1 for using rejects)
• Save seeds (3 pts. for saving seeds from one cucumber)

I've learned something already, just from reading the article (I learned to watch out for cucumber beetles!) but here's where I'm stumped: can I possibly squeeze any more cucumber plants into our tiny urban garden?

I already have five plants going labeled only "burpless slicing cucumber" at the nursery, and four lemon cucumbers I started from seed.  I've given in to temptation and ordered some Diva seeds from Johnny's; I'll have room for them at the edge of the garden when the bolting mizuna and tatsoi come out...  Okay, I've given into some more temptation, and ordered some Suyo Long and H-19 Little Leaf!  That's it, that's absolutely it!  I can squeeze Suyos in at the "dahlias by-and-by" end, prepared for dahlias that didn't go in this year after all.  Little Leaf can go in where the bolting arugula is going to come out.  LL is supposed to be a compact plant...

The plan is for the "burpless" cucumbers to climb a trellis in between the tomatoes, the lemon cucumbers to crawl off the lower end of the herb bed and sprawl, the Suyo Long to crawl off the top and side of the "dahlias by-and-by" bed and sprawl, the Little Leaf to crawl off the left side of the garden and, if they need the room, climb the fence between us and the hill above the railyard.

I found a woman on the Web who has a cucumber plant climbing an eight-foot trellis!  If ours get that big, we will have a problem!

 We have 50 residents in the building.  That's enough to polish off a lot of cucumbers!  Still, I don't want all those cucumber plants bearing at once.  It would be nice to get cucumbers from the end of July (when our first nursery generics should be bearing) through the end of September.  I think I'll stagger the planting every two weeks, planting the last as the first start bearing.

Row covers cost horrifically, and we don't really have the room for them either.  I've already got nasturtiums coming up among the "burpless" cukes, which should help repel cucumber beetles.  I'll plant some nasturtiums among the others, but also dill, which will grow up faster.  And I've ordered cucumber beetle lures and insect traps from Johnny's.

I'm going to start collecting recipes now!

Who else wants to play?