I’m growing cucumbers in containers on my porch, and I just recently started getting some good sized ones growing. Now, these are Boston pickling cucumbers that I bought in a pot from Lowe’s- separated out the 5 different plants into separate containers, and have been giving fertilizer once a week. I water every 1-2 days and live in the PNW. My cucumbers taste AWFUL. The first one I tasted was so bitter it was almost painful. I took one of the less bitter ones and pickled it, just to see. It tastes like sucking on an aspirin. Any idea where I’ve gone wrong?
by Tinyhounds
7 Comments
I’m no expert on pickling cucumbers, but you may be over-fertilizing. You really only need to add fertilizer about once a month. It’s like when you eat too much garlic and the smell of it leeches through your skin.
Pickling cucumbers usually don’t taste that good I find. They are not really good for just eating right off the plant. They taste good once you pickle them.
So pretty much all of the gourd family, releases a toxin called Cucurbitacin. They use it to ward off pests. It’s normally just in the stem, leaves and roots, but I’ve read that if it gets stressed it can send the enzyme to the fruit as well.
I would try peeling it. if the taste is too bitter still then I’d say the plant just got stressed.
I’ve read you can cut the end and then rub the cut tip against the cut fruit end in circles and it extracts some of the cucabirtacin that causes that taste. Happens when stressed or they grow too large.
It’s been hot? Cucumber get bitter when it’s too hot with warm nights. I found in my location my cukes were good only the first few, then the heat made them bitter and inedible the rest of summer. Was a bummer.
That happened to mine last year. They were pickling cucumbers. Mine would go from underripe to a pale green/yellow. They tasted VERY bitter, I decided not to grow them this year.
Cut off an end, rub that end’s interior side against the inside of the rest of the cucumber in a circular motion and a white sort of foam will start to come out. Wipe off the foam stuff and enjoy. The cucumber should be less bitter after that.