These little cucumbers have a clean, crisp texture and a sweet, mild flavour that never turns bitter even with age.
Dear Helen: I recently came across a real curiosity in a friend’s garden. It was a round, pale yellow edible borne on a vine. My friend identified it as a “sort of” cucumber, grown from seeds she was given. Is this a new type of vegetable?No, it is actually an heirloom cucumber dating back to the 1800s.
Dear Helen: Our scarlet runner beans have flowered well, but few of the flowers have turned into beans. The blooms just fall off the tall vines.The blossom drop you describe happens when the flowers are not pollinated or the weather is too hot. Runner beans, unlike common pole and bush beans, require pollination by bees or hummingbirds. They do best in cool summer weather and need a cool, consistently moist root run.
The shape of the fruits is commonly described as like a trombone. That has given rise to name variations among different strains of this heirloom squash. The one listed in the West Coast Seeds catalogue is Tromboncino. The variety I’m growing this year is Trombetta di Albenga, from Renee’s Garden. I find the textures and flavours of this squash, the Italian ridged Romanesco types and the Middle Eastern varieties more interesting and pleasing than the more commonly grown dark-skinned kinds.
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