Photographs of this planting through the 2026 season, oldest first.
The photographs
Week of 1 JuneA Suyo Long cucumber on 4 June, two true leaves out and a third unfolding above one surviving strap-shaped seed leaf — every margin tooth tipped with a stiff bristle, the blade puckered into hollows between its veins in hard sun.Week of 1 JuneA Suyo Long cucumber close up on 5 June, four leaves now and both blue-green seed leaves still holding below — rim and leaf stalk fringed with stiff translucent bristles, the dark blades sunk into hollows between the veins in soft light.Week of 15 JuneA Suyo Long cucumber on 19 June, its leaves quilted into raised islands between a coarse net of sunken veins and cut into sharp-toothed angular lobes, one unbranched tendril curling loose at the crown, out on part-scorched grass in flat bright light.Week of 15 JuneSuyo Long cucumbers on 21 June, sprawling flat over the rim instead of climbing, every blade puckered between sunken veins and bristling with stiff white hairs, one tendril at a growing tip wound into a tight flat spiral, in dim indoor light.Week of 22 JuneA Suyo Long cucumber on 23 June, its ridged bristly stems crossing above a tomato that has taken over the lower half of the frame, one bud showing an ovary already slim and elongated, and a yellow flower fallen below, too far gone to say whose.Week of 22 JuneSuyo Long cucumbers on 25 June, their runners already out of the bags and lying flat along the turf with unbranched tendrils looping over the grass, one leaf on the nearest bleached almost cream while its neighbors stay green, in hazy sun.Week of 29 JuneSuyo Long cucumbers on 5 July, a dozen small yellow stars open across the planting and no fruit set yet, the lowest leaves already bleached pale, and the anemometer cups of the weather station standing out past them under flat overcast.Week of 29 JuneA Suyo Long cucumber on 5 July, still slim and straight and set all over with fine white-tipped prickles standing on their own little warts, the papery flower stuck to its nose, in bright hazy light with the stems too close in to hold focus.Week of 29 JuneA Suyo Long cucumber on 5 July curved right round into a hook, its lengthwise ridges shallow at the shoulder and deepening to furrows at the tip, each wart tipped with a pale prickle, one crumpled yellow flower still open on the stem above.Week of 29 JuneSuyo Long cucumbers on 5 July seen down the row, a dozen flowers open and the lowest leaves gone papery brown at their tips, with white clover flowering through the grass and the wheel of a barrow left standing at the end of it.Week of 6 JulyA row of vines on 9 July, up and over a chest-high wire trellis, their bristle-edged lobed leaves still damp in low side light — a dozen small flat yellow stars of flower open along the stems and not one fruit showing anywhere among them.Week of 6 JulyOn 9 July vines run up two flat mesh panels on single unbranched tendrils, each coiled tight around the wire — angular leaves shallowly cut into pointed lobes, small yellow five-petaled flowers all along the stems, and not one fruit set anywhere.Week of 6 JulyA Suyo Long cucumber on 10 July, one young fruit hanging pale and slender under soft white spines that rise off small raised warts, its own flower still shriveled onto the blossom end — two fresh yellow blooms open beside it on a vine bristled all over.Week of 13 JulyA Suyo Long cucumber on 17 July hanging straight down the corridor between two leaning trellis panels, its long slender body running in continuous shallow ridges studded with pale-tipped warts, in low warm side light with long shadows.Week of 20 JulyA Suyo Long cucumber on 20 July resting on the mulch rather than hanging free, deep green in the grooves and dusty gray-green along the ridges, prickled all over white and still wearing its withered flower at the tip, in hard high sun.Week of 20 JulyA Suyo Long cucumber on 21 July, hanging straight down at head height in the middle of a leaf-covered tunnel, ridged and grooved the whole way along and dark with paler flecks and a few small warts, yellow flowers open above it under a flat white sky.Week of 27 JulyTwo jars set to ferment on 28 July, quartered spears standing on end with their seedy cut faces to the glass, dill pushed down between them and a dried red chili against the side, bubbles strung along every spear and foam gathering at the brine line.Week of 17 AugustA Suyo Long cucumber on 17 August hanging straight down the frame, its dark ridges broken into rows of warts and every wart carrying a short white prickle, with rainwater beaded along it and hanging off every wire behind.Week of 17 AugustA jar packed on 21 August, layered with dark-skinned cucurbit spears in a brine still perfectly clear, dill and whole garlic cloves crammed into the top and mustard seed and peppercorns drifted thick along the bottom, under warm kitchen light.Week of 17 AugustTwo Suyo Long cucumbers picked on 22 August, one long and gently arced and glossy, the other short, thick and matt dark green, both ribbed and warted in rows, with a dried tendril still stuck near the stalk end of the longer one.Week of 17 AugustTwo Suyo Long cucumbers washed and still beaded with water on 22 August, the longer running mid green at the stem end to yellow-green over its last stretch, deep furrows shadowed between ridges of white-tipped tubercles. The shorter is warted edge to edge.Week of 24 AugustThree Suyo Long cucumbers on 26 August hanging from the trellis wires, dark and deeply ridged and set with small pale warts, one curved right round into a hook, each still carrying its shriveled yellow flower at the blossom end.Week of 31 AugustA Suyo Long cucumber hanging free on 3 September, curved into a shallow C with the blossom end swinging down and every raised tubercle tipped with a white spine, so the overcast light outlines the fruit in bristles. The dead flower still holds at its tip.Week of 28 SeptemberA Suyo Long cucumber on 29 September, curving in a shallow S from upper left to lower center, its about ten pale ridges studded with low tubercles still carrying short spines, densest at the narrow blossom end. Soft overcast light, weak shadows.
