UC Master Gardener Program of Alameda County

Cucumbers, squash, and melons

Plant sale home | Cucumbers, squash, and melons | Herbs | Peas and beans | Peppers | Tomatoes | All other veggies | Edible flowers

Cucumbers


	Armenian Harvest at 8"-18" long • 65-70 days • Dark and light green • Vining Valued for its flavor and attractive fruits, this cucumber is also known as snake melon. It is a heavy producer of light and dark green striped fruit that have a curved shape. An excellent slicer, the flesh is mild, sweet and crunchy. This variety requires a long and warm growing season.⁴
	Boston 3-7" • 55 days • Green • Heirloom • Vining An old heirloom dating back to 1880. Vigorous vines give large yields, excellent for pickles, very crisp and good quality. A very popular variety at the turn of the 20th century. Photo: True Leaf Market
	Bush 6-8" • 55 days • Green • Hybrid • Bush Juicy slicing cucumbers in record time on dwarf bushes, perfect for small space or container gardens. These sturdy indeterminate hybrid vines yield strong crops in both cool conditions and real summer heat. Resistant to powdery mildew, cucumber mosaic virus and scab. Enjoy this space-saving cucumber in delicious salads from your own patio this season. Photo: Renee's Garden
	Diva Harvest at 5-7" long • 58 days • Green • 5-6' • Vining Distinctly tender, crisp, sweet and bitter free seedless cukes. Adapted for growing in fields, so no need for support. Especially flavorful when harvested small. Disease and mildew resistant. Photo: True Leaf Market
	Endeavor Harvest at 3-4" • 53 days • Green • Hybrid • Vining This early-bearing pickling or “Kirby” cucumber is a kitchen garden dynamo that produces an extended harvest of crispy, curved fruits with the traditional knobby “pickle” skin. Great tasting and high-yielding vines will keep you well supplied for putting up many jars of your favorite treats like kosher dills, bread-and-butter slices, relish, and traditional sweet pickles. Endeavor is also a fine crunchy, fresh-eating cucumber right from the vine. Plants are resistant to mosaic viruses and downy mildew. Photo: Renee's Garden
	Garden Sweet Burpless 10-12" • 55 days • Green • Vining Unbelievable yields of fruits with faint striping and a smooth, thin skin. Completely burpless and bitter-free, with a mild, delicious flavor that rivals the taste of industry-standard "Sweet Slice." Perfect for slicing, for eating fresh, even for pickling! Great disease resistance. Photo: True Leaf Market
	Green Fingers Harvest at 3-5" • 60 days • Green • Vining Cute mini cucumbers that are smooth, thin-skinned and crispy. The vigorous, powdery mildew tolerant vines are self-pollinating, early-bearing, and set fruits reliably even in difficult conditions. Enjoy these quality baby cucumbers all season long. It took us a long time to find a good seed source for these exceptional little baby cucumbers usually found only in Middle Eastern markets. Photo: Renee's Garden
	Lemon Harvest at 1.5-2.5" • 65 days • Yellow • 24" • Vining Small, rounded, pale yellow cucumbers. This versatile cucumber is sweet and flavorful, and doesn't have much of the chemical that makes other cucumbers bitter and hard to digest. Though it's often served raw, it's also a good pickling cucumber. Note: this one is very late to begin bearing.⁴
	Pepinex 12-14" • 65-70 days • Green • Vining Flawless and refined, Pepinex produces premium English-type cucumbers on productive plants. These slender, long, straight fruits have a clean, nearly sweet flavor, and not a trace of bitterness. They have just a hint of ribbing, and an exquisitely smooth thin skin that saves you the need to peel. Photo: wanko / CC BY 2.0
	Straight Eight 8" • 58 days • Green • Heirloom • Vining Classic variety whose vigorous leafy vines bear good crops of juicy slicing cucumbers with a crunchy texture and mild, sweet flavor. Photo: J. Worthen / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Squash


	Igor Jack-O-Lantern Pumpkin 8-20 lbs. • 100 days • Orange • Vining The traditional pumpkin of Halloween. Pumpkins are round to oblong, and make fantastic carving pumpkins. In addition to being the best pumpkin for carving, they are excellent for cooking. Sweet and tasty flesh is used to make pies, muffins, soups, and casseroles. Photo: Johnny’s Selected Seeds
	Sugar Pie New England Pie Pumpkin 4-6 lbs. • 105 days • Orange • Vining The classic New England pie pumpkin! Not as sweet as squash, the well-colored orange flesh is relatively starchy, dry and stringless—just what you want for your pumpkin pie! Photo: Veganbaking.net / CC BY-SA 2.0
	Crookneck Summer Squash 4-6" • 41 days • Yellow • Hybrid • Vining This one is a long-time favorite! Known to be fast-growing and early maturing, it produces prolific yields of shiny bright yellow crooknecks. The fruit holds well after picking—a great advantage for a high-yielding plant. Pick on the small side for the best flavor.⁵
	Patty Pan Bennings Green Tint Summer Squash Harvest at 2-3" • 50-55 days • Green • 36-48" • Vining A very pretty scalloped squash that is tender inside and out. They have an excellent flavor and a nice firm texture. Vigorous bushes yield an abundance of squash during the season.¹
	Butternut Winter Squash 4-5 lbs. • 105 days • Orange • Vining This 1970 All-America Selections winner from Massachusetts is still the benchmark for large butternuts. Larger fruits with small seed cavities and thick, straight, cylindrical necks. The flesh has smooth texture and sweet flavor, particularly after 2 months of storage.²
	Delicata Winter Squash 7-9" • 80-100 days • Ivory and green stripes • Vining The flesh of this oblong fruit has a rich, sweet-potato-like flavor which is ideal for baking or stuffing. Its short vines are prolific.²
	Kabocha Winter Squash 3-5 lbs. • 95 days • Orange and red • Vining This All-America Selections winner bears stunning, scarlet fruit. The tender flesh is smooth and sweet—ideal for baking, mashing, and pies. Fruits are slightly flat-round on vigorous, short vines. Their appearance and eating quality are superior to other varieties of this type. No need to peel this one—the skin is thin and nutritious! Can be consumed at maturity, or stored. Average 3-4 fruits per plant.¹
	Spaghetti Winter Squash 3 lbs. • 85 days • Yellow • Semi Bush Pinnacle variety; high-yielding, semi-bush variety with slightly sweet, nutty flavor. Yields 4-6 fruits per plant. Good companion plant for sunflowers. Bake like other winter squash, then flake out the noodle flesh into tasty spaghetti-like strands. To store fruits for later use, keep them cool and dry.⁴
	Dunja Green Zucchini Harvest at 6-8" • 50 days • Green • Organic • Vining Early, powdery mildew resistant. A high-yielder of fruit, these open plants and short spines make for an easy harvest. Sets fruit well with minimal pollinator activity, making Dunja a good choice for tunnel production. Photo: Johnny's Selected Seeds
	Magda Zucchini Harvest at 6-8" • 50 days • Green • Vining Identified as having the best flavor of any Mid-East style squash in our trials. Magda's sweet, nutty flavor is comparable to Zephyr. The blocky, tapered fruits are great for stuffing, stir-fries, and pickling. High-yielding over a long season.¹

Melons


	Brilliant Canary Melon 4 lb. • 75 days • Yellow • Vining The smooth yellow melons with flesh that is very sweet and juicy. Harvest when fruit turns dark yellow, at forced-slip stage, or cut from vine.³
	Crimson Sweet Watermelon 15-25 lb. • 85 days • Yellow-green striped • Vining Classic large watermelon with excellent flavor and texture. Crisp, sweet pink flesh, and vigorous vines. Average 1-2 fruits per plant.4
	Hearts of Gold Cantaloupe 3 lb. • 80 days • Orange • Heirloom • Vining A high-quality heirloom that can be grown in short-season climates. These very productive plants produce fruit that is firm-fleshed and aromatic.²
	Honeydew 7-8 lbs. • 75-100 days • Light green • Vining Homegrown honeydews are far superior to grocery store melons. Vine-ripened "Sweet Delight" has an unbelievably sweet, almost wine-like flavor.5
	Sugar Baby Watermelon 10" • 80 days • Green • 6" • Vining This picnic staple has been the standard of summer watermelons for years! Vines and set 4-6 melons. With that unmistakable crisp, mouth-watering, sweet, rich flavor, who can resist it?³

Catalog photo credits: UC Master Gardeners—¹P. Dimas, ²P. Joki, ³D. Laner, ⁴T. Loftus, ⁵G. Myers, ⁶S. Wentz, ⁷S. Wood, ⁸C. Yip, ⁹Unknown UC Master Gardener of Alameda County.