Lemon and Armenian Cucumbers

Summer and Fall bring us great garden treats ... that is if we plant and care for a garden.

One of my long time favorites from our garden is Lemon Cucumbers.   (These, however, are not from my garden.)

Lemon Cucumbers have a great flavor and are usually never bitter.  They do have a unique look - not much like a regular cucumber.  They have little black prickly things on the outside so we always peel them to eat them. 

I learned about these as a young girl, when my mother used to grow these in our garden in Warden as I was growing up.  Because I like them so well I have grown them many times in our garden, but I have never seen anyone else grow or sell these (until my children started growing them too).   It's usually hard to find the seeds.


This year Michael grew these cucumbers in his garden and shared them with us. 

They are Armenian Cucumbers and they are delicious - even sweeter than the Lemon Cucumbers.
I had never seen them before, so it was a treat for us, and they could easily become my favorite cucumber. They look more like a cucumber than the Lemon Cucumbers do, but they have a unique outside skin - it's a bit fuzzy, so we like to cut the skin off of these too (but I don't know if you have too it just seems better that way to me).

 

If you're like me, and you get a chance to try one of these, you might find that you like cucumbers better than you thought you did.  Michael has sold a few at Judy's and at Harvest Foods, and even at a Farmer's Market - I hear there are some people who are pretty excited to find them because they love them so much and cannot easily be found.