Harvesting Minis

Kyra showing us how to pick minis.

About two weeks after planting the seedling (4 weeks counting from the seeding), we can start picking up minis.  When the plants are young, sitting down on the cart makes the job easier because the cucumbers grow at lower part of the plants.  Depending on the customer, we either rip the cucumbers off with a hand or cut them with a knife.  Today we are selling the cucumbers to another greenhouse who wants them cut.

Cucumbers taste the same regardless of their size, so the right size is dependent on the customers.  When we sell them to Jimmy the pickup guy, we pick the size shown below.

Comparison of good mini and my hand.

Note that cucumbers get scratched easily by being rubbed against stems/leaves or accidentally hacked by knives.  Too much scars on them would turn them into a garbage that doesn't sell.  The following is the picture of cucumbers that got rubbed against the leaves.

Top: scratched when young.  Bottom: scratched recently.

When we harvest, the good setup for the cart is something like the picture below.

Tote setup on a cart for picking.

Stacking totes adds height to soften the impact when the cucumbers are thrown.  The middle tote is for garbage like scratched, too big, or too small cucumbers.  If you want, you can turn the totes sideways to create extra space in the front for sitting.

The fullness of tote when I picked one row (96 plants).

Today we picked 21 totes of minis.  A good harvest!