Over the top.

As of today we have picked close to ten feet of Telegraph Improved cucumbers. Almost every evening we have a salad of thinly sliced cucumbers, onions, basil and tomatoes. These cucumbers are excellent, in that they have tiny seeds and are firm and tasty.

My previous experience with cucumbers has been that they produce an initial heavy yield and drop off quickly. These cucumbers are still growing with a lot of immature fruit developing and new female flowers forming.

In anticipation of them slowing down I have already started replacement seeds, but I will be reducing the number of plants to two. I have decided to let these plants continue to grow and produce fruit until they begin to fade. To do this I have added poly twine across the top of the greenhouse and will train the plants down onto the tomato support.

And regarding tomatoes; I have terminated the Super Cluster plants after they set six trusses so that the existing fruit would develop more quickly, and hopefully begin to ripen sooner. It is my intention to let the Moneymaker tomatoes continue to grow, and train them toward the top of the greenhouse. They have already reached the top of their support. and at some point I will have an "arch de salad" going on.

On all of the tomato plants I have limited the number of fruit on each truss to five. This will result in larger fruit, and also prevent the truss from becoming too heavy and breaking off the plant. I have also pruned all of the bottom leaves up to the first truss to allow air circulation at the base of the plants and more light to enter to promote ripening.

Due to the size of the plants, and the recent hot weather, each plant is consuming about a gallon of nutrients per day. Additionally, I expect to be picking Giant Marconi peppers in a week or two. So far all is looking very good with the warm weather crops.