Growing Non-GMO Boston Pickling Cucumber Vegetable Seeds
How to Grow Boston Pickling Cucumber from Seed
Cucumber is a warm weather crop best if begun indoors 4-6 weeks prior to final spring frost. Plant 3-4 seeds 1" deep per individual cell in loamy, sandy, well-drained soil with a pH of 6-6.5. Seeds germinate in 3-10 days, transplanting best starts 36-48" apart in the garden once true leaves establish. Cucumbers perform best when grown on 8" tall mounds and provided a trellis to minimize crowding. Shallow roots will benefit from regular watering and top layer of mulch. Bush varieties perform well in pots and containers.
Boston Pickling Cucumber in the Vegetable Garden
Cucumbers usually have both male and female flowers. It is the female flower that produces fruit while the male flower produces primarily pollen. Sow between March and April. Plant this heirloom next to corn or radish and avoid potato, cauliflower, and basil.
Boston Pickling has a vine growth habit that spread across the soil. Harvest between July and August--when the fruit is 3 inches long. If cucumbers turn yellow, it's too late. Pick fruit early in the morning and refrigerate for the best flavor.
Produces bright green 3" fruits with dark spines and a much smoother skin than other pickling cucumbers. Very high yields!
Harvesting Boston Pickling Cucumbers
Many varieties of cucumber are ready for harvest about 60 days from sowing while smaller pickling varieties may be ready sooner. Ripe cucumbers are solid green and firm, becoming bitter and yellow if left on the vine too long. Classic slicing cucumbers are sweetest when 7-9" long, becoming starchy and grainy when reaching 12" or more. Remove fruits with scissors or a knife rather than twisting or plucking to prevent damaging the vine.
The Boston Pickling cucumber is an early variety of cucumber that is sweet, tender and seedless. The Boston Pickling is large and smooth with a soft outer layer. Since this variety is mature in just fifty two days, a steady harvest can be achieved by planting regularly throughout the season.
About Boston Pickling Cucumber Garden Seeds
Was also known as "Green Prolific."
Boston Picking Cucumber is a very old (first documented in 1877) reliable pickling cucumber that was "improved" sometime in the 1950s giving it resistance to cucumber mosaic virus and cucumber scale.
The Boston Pickling cucumber has been around for a long time for good reason, it is the standard for homemade pickles.
It produces heavy yields of small 6" cucumbers downright perfect for pickling. It is best to harvest Boston pickling cucumbers for pickles when they are 2" to 6" long. That way they fit in your jars!!
Cucumber is one of the easiest and most productive summertime favorites suited for just about any home garden. Grown similarly to summer melons, cucumbers are heat and drought tolerant and, once matured, will produce vigorously well into fall. Whether small pickling cucumbers or a larger, more familiar slicing variety, cucumbers are available as either short convenient bush types or long, vining climbers that will produce well into fall.
1883 Joseph Breck & Son seed company of Boston says about Boston Pickling Cucumber...
"Extensively grown by the market gardeners in the vicinity of Boston. It is very productive and of superior color and quality."
1924 Portland Seed Company catalog says about Boston Pickling Cucumber...
"Color, bright green, and a great producer. The fruits average 4 to 5 inches in length when large enough for slicing and are of excellent quality, but it is for producing medium sized pickles that this variety is so highly esteemed."
