By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, June 28, 2007 in The Washington Post

I've never understood sportfishing -- the kind where hooking an inedible creature and throwing it back is the goal. No matter how much fun the day, I need to see a great seafood meal at the end.

The same goes for gardening. My husband, because he grows food for the local market (and possibly because he's a guy), takes another view. For him, growing cucumbers -- a vegetable he loathes and will eat only if it is hidden in gazpacho -- is strictly a catch-and-release game, one that has taken on the fervor of an athletic event.

It started in 1989 when he visited a French grower. In a greenhouse, this fellow had dug long trenches wide enough to hold rows of straw bales on edge and deep enough to bury them by two-thirds in the ground. Once placed in the trenches, the bales were soaked with dried blood and other organic, high-nitrogen materials to get decomposition going and to heat them up. After they had cooled to 80 degrees, the farmer covered them with four inches of mature sheep manure compost and set out cucumber seedlings. The bottom heat provided by the bale beds produced quick growth and a spectacular harvest.

Our farm's program for growing super-cukes in the greenhouse is a bit less extreme, but my husband does enrich his deeply dug beds with lots of composted horse manure. He swears by a cucumber variety called Socrates. The cucumber vines are trained to grow upward to a support bar seven feet above the ground. Fruits that form below three feet are removed, and above that one fruit is allowed to grow per node, where the leaf attaches to the stem. All suckers are pruned out as well, to eliminate side shoots. When a vine reaches the top, it is allowed to develop a second stem, and both then grow downward from the bar. They form a cucumber at each node all the way down.

If really vigorous, they can be trained all the way up to the top again! The rows of mighty vines, with leaves up to 17 inches across, look like a South American jungle organized by a German engineer. This year my husband is trying to duplicate his triumph outdoors.

Meanwhile, I'm in my little garden growing gourmet varieties and thinking about dainty cucumber-and-watercress sandwiches, Indian cucumber raita with yogurt and cumin seed, itty-bitty gherkins in vinegar and dill. I doubt anything I produce will come close in flavor to our farm's six- to eight-inch beauties, all perfectly formed and so sweet you can cut one off the vine and eat it like an apple. Almost good enough to convert a cucumber hater.

Article copyright of Barbara Damrosch. Reprinted with permission.
Photo credit: Found Drama