Plant · P-202

Cucumber

Cucumis sativus

Cucumber is a hot-weather vine grown for fruit best picked young and often, since overgrown fruit turns pithy and bitter. It needs 15 to 20 inches of water over a season, ruling out dryland growing, and two crops a year are normal in a long warm season. Bacterial wilt, spread by cucumber beetles, is the main threat, and only one widely available variety resists it - buying time under beetle pressure rather than removing the risk. Most varieties carry separate male and female flowers on the same plant, so fruit set depends entirely on honeybee visits, one of the few crops here where pollinators are a hard requirement rather than a bonus.