Silver Slicer Cucumber

'Silver Slicer' is a pale, creamy-yellow slicing cucumber with thin skin and a mild flavour that never turns bitter. The fruits are best picked at 6 to 8 inches, when they are still pale; left longer they yellow and seed up. It is a vigorous vine that climbs 6 feet or more on a trellis.

Cucumbers need warm soil, above 65°F, and sulk in cold ground. Sow directly once the soil has warmed, a week or two after last frost, or start indoors three weeks earlier in pots and transplant carefully, because the roots resent disturbance. Trellising keeps the fruit straight and clean, improves air movement and makes the harvest easy to see. Water deeply and consistently; an uneven supply is the usual cause of bitter fruit.

Sow a second batch three weeks after the first and a third in early summer; young plants outproduce old ones that have set a lot of seed. Pick every other day once fruiting starts, since a vine that is allowed to ripen fruit slows down.