- Cucumbers | Key Growing Information
- Cucumber Grafting | Advantages, Materials & Technique
- Field-Grown Cucumber Varieties | Comparison Chart (PDF)
- Greenhouse Cucumber Production Guide | Tech Sheet (PDF)
- Greenhouse Cucumber Varieties | Comparison Chart (PDF)
- Cucumber Types & Terminology | Johnny's Selected Seeds
- Video: How to Grow Cucumbers • From Seed to Harvest
- Cucumber Beetle Lure Instructions | Tech Sheet (PDF)
- How to Top-Graft Cucumbers | Tech Sheet (PDF)
- Video: How to Prune Trellised Cucumbers to Optimize Yield & Reduce Disease Pressure
- Video: Lower & Lean Demonstration | An Intro to Greenhouse Rollerhook (or Tomahook) Trellising
- Video: High-Value Crops & Varieties for Your Garden • Tutorial with Niki Jabbour
- Fundamentals of Cucumber Grafting | Johnny's Educational Webinar Resources
- Limelight Trio — Lime Green Cucumber Varieties from Johnny's
- Video: Top-Grafting Cucumbers Demonstration | Johnny's Selected Seeds
- Webinar Slide Deck | Fundamentals of Cucumber Grafting | 25-pp PDF
- 'Picolino' & 'Qwerty' Snacking Cucumber Varieties From Johnny's
- Video: Fundamentals of Cucumber Grafting | Johnny's Webinar Series
'Picolino' & 'Qwerty' Snacking Cucumber Varieties From Johnny's
We’re here in our greenhouse cucumber trial, and this morning I wanted to go over two of our snacking cucumber options, 'Picolino' and 'Qwerty'. They're varieties that have a lot of similarities, but also some key differences, and I wanted to highlight them for you this morning.
'Picolino', to start with, is our organic snacking cucumber option. And as you can see here, it is a slightly longer fruit. It has some gentle ribbing, and of the two, I would say it has a little bit of a better eating quality.
Snacking cucumbers in general tend to have a pretty mild flavor. They can be very fresh, but a little bit watery compared to some other types.
Of the two, I like 'Picolino' a little bit more. 'Qwerty' is still very good eating quality, but we all have our preferences.
As you can see here with 'Picolino', because it can get a little bit bigger, it has a little bit more flexibility in when you want to go in and harvest it.
Obviously, if you're picking it for snacking, you don't want it to get too big, but it does provide you with a little more wiggle room if it's harder for you to get in and harvest every single day.
Here on the plant, you can see that it usually produces one to two fruit per node. I would say that one is probably a little bit more common. It's very productive, but it's not gonna have the same yields as 'Qwerty'.
For 'Qwerty', you can see here we have a little bit shorter fruit without that ribbing. They're a little bit smoother and they will round out and get a little bit overgrown more quickly than Picolino, meaning that you do have to be in there harvesting very regularly every day, every other day, as much as possible. That's also in part because the plants, as you can see here, are just absolutely covered in fruit. They have two, three fruit per node and the nodes are quite tight. And so the yields for this variety are really, really high.
Honestly, trying to keep up with harvesting is going to be as much work as anything else with this variety. It's one that we really like for its production and for its ability to just produce cookie cutter, uniform, beautiful fruit over the course of the summer.
Hopefully you've learned a little bit more about these two varieties, and we hope you'll consider trying one or both of them in your greenhouse this upcoming season.
Learn more about 'Picolino' and 'Qwerty'