Ja, Das Funky Veg Kit!

Here’s a confession. Up until this summer I’d never grown any cucumbers. Not one. Even though I’d had forays into the exotica of the kitchen garden, planting things like salsify (which turned out miserably small), perennial cabbage and Jerusalem artichoke, I’d never planted any cucumbers. This all changed in 2014 thanks to my ‘Funky Veg Kit’ or to give it its far more satisfying German name, meine Kit Flippiges Gemuse.

It was given to me as a Christmas present by the wife and contained, what you might call ‘the party tricks’of the vegetable world. These are the kind of seeds created when plantbreeders come back from the pub on a Friday afternoon having had one too many light ales, and fancy a bit of genetic tinkering.

In the kit were yellow courgettes, purple carrots, striped Tigerella tomatoes, multi-coloured Swiss Chard and round cucumbers.

I wasn’t sure how many would make it into the ground. My record on growing carrots has never been that good, and when you can buy huge perfect specimens so cheaply in the supermarket, all without evidence of weevils, it seems like a waste space to plant them. Chard is not that much different from dock leaves, but I liked the sound of round cucumbers.

Fast forward to June. Over a relaxing mug of tea in the back garden we reviewed what would be going into the raised beds this summer: Courgettes and runner beans, tomatoes, rocket, radishes, lettuce, spinach, beetroot, dahlia yams and… "Cucumbers. We really could do with a supply of cucumbers this summer,” my wife said, having entirely forgotten she’d give me the seeds at Christmas.

“Don’t worry,” I replied, “I’ve got five plants ready to go in now.”

Fast forward to early August. “They’re round!” “Yes.” “They’re not the right colour either.” “No.” “But I thought I was getting normal cucumbers.” Time to play the trump card: “These are the ones you bought me.” “Oh...”

To be fair we were both slightly underwhelmed with our round cucumbers once the novelty had worn off. They weren’t that prolific. But then we tasted them. They’re great, slightly stiffer than your average green cucumber, but unlike the traditional shape, they come in much more useable units. With a round cucumber there’s none of the leaving a half-cut end to go mushy in the fridge. You can slice open a crisp new cucumber whenever you want one. Out of a potential disaster, we had that rarity, a triumph in the Grump Garden.

Fast forward to the end of September and the very last of the cucumbers was harvested with a degree of sadness. “Will you get some more of these?” I was asked. No better endorsement.

Wait till we get to harvest the dahlia yams…