Cucumis sativus.
The reference garden cucumber in North America for five decades. Developed in 1976 by the breeder Henry Munger at Cornell University — hence the "76" marking the release year — it came out of a long crossing program aimed at uniting in a single variety resistance to several major diseases that traditionally ruin cucumbers: scab, powdery mildew, downy mildew and mosaic virus. The result: an open-pollinated, productive and robust cultivar that has let home gardeners and organic market growers succeed with their cucumbers without resorting to pesticides or patented hybrids.
Long, straight fruits 20 to 22 cm, a uniform dark green, with smooth tender skin that needs no peeling. White, firm, crunchy, juicy flesh, mild and fresh in flavour with no trace of bitterness — a cucumber frankly superior to what you find at the grocery store. Perfect sliced in a salad, in sticks with tzatziki, slipped into a sandwich, turned into pickles when harvested younger, or blended into gazpacho with yogurt and dill on heatwave days. Vigorous climbing plant that produces continuously from mid-July to frost, provided you pick regularly.
Grower's tip: Cucumber hates being moved — its roots are fragile and it broods for a long time over a rough transplant. If you start indoors (3 to 4 weeks before planting out, no more), use biodegradable pots that go straight into the ground. Otherwise, direct-sow in early June once the soil is well warmed. Install a trellis — it improves air circulation (and so disease resistance, already good), keeps the fruits straight and clean, and makes harvesting far easier — much better than hunting for cucumbers in a tangle of leaves on the ground.
- Open-pollinated. Stable variety, reproduces faithfully. Monoecious, bee-pollinated: crosses with other nearby cucumbers — isolate for seed saving.
- Height: climbing stems 1.5 to 2 m, to be trellised.
- Maturity: 60 to 70 days after transplant.
- Exposure: full sun.
- Rich, deep, well-drained soil, kept cool with good mulching. Space plants 40 to 50 cm apart on the trellis.
- Start indoors 3 to 4 weeks before last frost in biodegradable pots, or direct-sow in early June once the soil is at 18 °C minimum. Harvest regularly (every 2 to 3 days at peak production) to stimulate the formation of new fruits.
