Cucumbers (Cucumis sativus) represent a tropical, trailing plant that initially thrived in India and Southeast Asia. Over time, their cultivation expanded across the globe due to their revitalizing flavor and versatility in various culinary creations.
In the 1600s, they traversed from Europe to America. Their consumption spans from raw to pickled, offering not only a means of hydration but also a delightful addition to numerous dishes.
The question is, are cucumbers fruits or vegetables?
Cucumbers are interesting because they can be called both fruits and vegetables! It depends on if you’re thinking about cooking or plants.
In cooking, how we make food and its taste decide if it’s a fruit or vegetable. Fruits are usually sweet and we often eat them raw or make jams from them.
Vegetables are more often used in things like soups and stir-fries and taste milder when we cook them. Fruits usually have softer skin, while vegetables have tougher skin.
Cucumbers taste different when they’re pickled. But since we usually eat them raw and they aren’t very strong in taste, cooks say they’re vegetables.
But if you ask a plant scientist (a botanist), they’ll say cucumbers are fruits. They look at where plants grow from. Fruits grow from flowers and have seeds. Vegetables can be other parts like stems, leaves, or roots.
Cucumbers come from a plant’s flower (and they have seeds), so botanists call them fruits.
These sumptuous fruit/vegetable only comes once every year.
Cucumber plants are annual plants and they can only survive only one growing season.
This is the main reason why most cucumber growers take advantage of harvesting as much as they can during cucumber’s growing season.
This man from a YouTube channel called ‘Terrace garden ideas‘ shared an easy and practical way of propagating cucumbers so they’d bear more fruits than usual.
First, he started by getting the cucumber seeds ready. He put the seeds in a cup with clean water and then emptied the water.
Next, he mixed soil with rice husks in a big bowl. After making the soil mixture, he moved some of it to a smaller bowl where he planted the seeds.
Instead of digging holes and burying the seeds, he simply scattered them all over the soil and covered them with a good amount of soil before giving them water.
After about a week, you can expect the seeds to grow about 3 to 4 inches tall.
Then, he got ready more places for the plants to grow. He used old water containers and turned them into beds for the cucumber plants.
He put a maximum of 2 plants in each container.
On the 15th day, he came back and saw that the cucumber plants were now 6 to 8 inches tall.
Since cucumbers like to climb, he put up a fence to give them more space to spread out.
He then put some special soil, crushed egg shells, and fertilizer on top of each plant. He watered the plants and returned on the 20th day.
To help the plants grow upwards, he tied each plant with a thin rope. This rope helped the plants climb.
Around the 25th day, you should start to see small cucumber fruits growing. But remember, you need to water the plants regularly and trim them.
On the 35th day, add more organic fertilizer.
Wait until the 45th day before picking your ripe cucumbers.
It’s as simple as that. You can have more cucumbers following these steps. Just make sure to give your cucumber plants enough space so they can grow lots of fruits.
Watch how it’s actually done by watching the video below.
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