cucumber variety suggestions and growing

can anyone recommend a reliable greenhouse variety ? I've tried a range in the last few years, but often get bitter ones. I don't necessarily get round to removing male flowers in time, and the F1 bitter free sorts aren't necessarily so I've found.

I used to grow Telegraph, bitter free for years, but then had a year when most of the cucs were bitter, so started trying other varieties.

I tend to 'let the plants get on with it' once established, and just damp down with lots of water to keep the spider mite down. I have had plants fairly quickly slump and die, (so reduce my total plants from 3 to 1), but managed to dig up and destroy the plants before they were all wiped out. Is this an indicator that I should dig out and replace the border soil in my green house ?

Many thanks for any tips

 

Apple Cucumbers are a bit different.
They are also sweet and quickly disappear - if you let interlopers get access to your greenhouse.
They seem easy to grow and the seeds are more easily accessible these days.

 

I grew Piccolino F1 for the first time last year in the conservatory and they went mental.Lots of fruit and finally finished them in early December.Unfortunately they were £3.69 for 4 seeds so the T@M deal looks very good especially if combined with one of their £5 vouchers.

 

Thanks JWK, yes maybe I've been too generous with splashing water around in the early days. Will try an all female variety again.

 

"Apple Cucumbers are a bit different.".
I've seen these in magazines, but been put off, 'cos they look like cucs that are too mature (yellow skin). YOu're the first person I've heard of who has grown them. Greenhouse space is so valuable that I've been wary of just trying odd looking things like this, thanks for the tip.

 

Rather than "mini" cucumbers, can you suggest one or more F1's which are smooth skinned. Last year's looked terrific but had tough and prickly skins. I prefer ones that don't need peeling - the sort you get in (winces) supermarkets?

 

we were given a cucumber plant by my aunt last year and it was thick skinned and thorny

Father in law recomended Telegraph but im worried about getting bitter cue`s , if I remove male flowers will this stop this ? if so how do I tell dfemale and male ones apart

 

Hiya John. Could you expand on this a little? Like, how much do you take out, and what do you replace it with? :thumb:

 

Excellent John, thanks for that. BTW, I was thinking Tomatoes anyway