Problems with Cucumbers not Being Green

lots of cucumbers

We have Joanne in Massillon who asks, “now, my cucumbers. I’ve got three plants. Never had this happen before. They’ll be ready to pick in a day or two. But one of the plants has three cucumbers and they are just as white as can be. Somebody suggested maybe they got under the leaves too much. I’m 88 and I’ve had a garden forever. I’ve never had a white cucumber. That’s very weird.

My son started these for me, and one of his acorn squash has the same problem. He’s got green ones, but he’s got one plant with white acorn squash on it.”

It could have gotten cross-pollinated with something else around there. They’ll be safe to eat, they may have a different flavor. If they do have a different flavor or something, then they probably got cross-pollinated. But it does sound like they may have been kind of blocked out by the sunlight too. A lot of times blocking out the sun can change the chlorophyll of it.

It does sound like maybe you got like a different seed or something too, especially if all those fruits are looking like that on the same plant. It either, yeah, there’s either cross-pollination or a different seed. But there are a lot of different varieties, so maybe there is a white cucumber out there. Go ahead and eat it if it tastes okay. It might just be the sunlight then too.

It’s interesting, Joanne mentioned cucumbers. I am working on shedding a few pounds, and I just started this week, someone told me that eat a half a cucumber in the morning, and it fools your body. What is a cucumber, like celery, a lot of water, right? It fools your body that you’re full and go from there.

I can eat just a cucumber, but I got this recipe from an old Polish chef, and that I make cucumbers two ways, like cucumbers, dice them up, put them with onions, a little bit of kosher salt. He uses sugar, I don’t use sugar. I try to stay away from sugar. But then I use just a little Hellman’s mayonnaise. I’ll have to try sour cream instead sometime. You could just do it with vinegar, too, and use the cucumbers and vinegars.

I don’t have cucumbers this year. I did grow them last year. I usually grow a bunch of cucumbers for pickles. That’s usually my main reason for cucumbers. They can just get powdery mildew, just like a lot of the squash. The bigger leaf vegetables can tend to get powdery mildew. But that is just kind of a normal thing, and you can use copper fungicide to correct it.

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