A benchmark cucumber: dark green fruits, no bitterness, firm flesh, few seeds and intense aroma.
About the variety. Fruits of 150–200 g, semi-determinate habit and plant height up to 60 cm. Resistant to several cucumber diseases and very productive outdoors. When the skin begins to show white stripes, the fruit is already past its ideal point — harvest before then. Good companions: celery, lettuce, beetroot, borage, onion and bean.
Indicative windows; adjust them to your local climate.
Edible flower
Bee-friendly
Growing guide
How to grow marketmore cucumber?
A step-by-step growing guide, from sowing to harvest.
Sowing
Sow in individual pots three to four weeks before planting out, two or three centimetres deep with the seed on its edge, at 22 °C to 25 °C. Germination takes five to eight days. It hates root disturbance: use biodegradable pots or transplant with the root ball intact. You can also sow direct, two or three seeds per station, with the soil above 15 °C, then keep the strongest plant. The first flowers are all male and set no fruit; if later the small fruits shrivel, pollination is failing: hand pollinate early in the morning with a brush.
Soil
It wants deep, loose soil, very rich in organic matter and free draining, with a pH between 6.0 and 7.0. The classic approach is to open a wide hole, fill it with mature compost and plant on that spot, which gives the plant the reserve it needs. Rotate on a four year cycle with crops from other families.
Climate
It needs steady warmth between 20 °C and 30 °C and sun, but appreciates part shade during the hottest hours of an Iberian summer. Below 12 °C it stops growing and turns bitter. It is very sensitive to dry wind, which scorches the leaves. Inland in Portugal and Spain heat rather than cold is the limiting factor: in weeks above 35 °C the plant stalls and light shade over midday pays for itself. In France outdoor growing is reliable from the centre southwards, while in northern France and in Germany a greenhouse, a polytunnel or a warm south facing wall makes the difference, and planting out should wait until after the mid May cold snap. This is an early variety, which makes it particularly suited to short summer regions such as northern France and Germany, and also to a late second crop in the south.
Fertilisation
Work two to three kilos of well rotted compost into each square metre before planting and add a handful of wood ash to top up potassium. Once growth is away, feed with a liquid organic fertiliser every two or three weeks, moving from a balanced formula to a higher potassium one as cropping begins. Avoid excess nitrogen, which gives lush leaves, a poor crop and a lot of aphids.
Watering
The fruit is nearly all water and any water stress gives crooked, hollow or bitter cucumbers. Water generously and daily in the heat, always at the base and in the morning. A straw mulch is essential to hold moisture and keep the roots cool.
Weed control
The critical period is the first month, before the foliage covers the ground. Hand weed in that phase and, once the vines start to run, stop disturbing the soil: from then on the plant smothers weeds itself. A straw mulch under the foliage keeps the fruit clean and dry and greatly reduces losses to rot where fruit touches the soil.
Pest control
The main pests are aphids, red spider mite, thrips and whitefly, and on young plants slugs and snails, which can cut down a newly emerged seedling in one night. Protect the seedlings with a cut bottle or an ash barrier for the first weeks. Against aphids and whitefly use potassium soap in the late afternoon; against red spider mite, which appears in dry heat, wet the leaves in the morning and use neem oil.
Diseases
Powdery mildew is practically unavoidable and shows as white dust on the upper leaf surface, above all from midsummer on. It is checked with potassium bicarbonate or sulphur applied at the first signs, together with removal of old leaves and good airflow. Cucurbit downy mildew gives angular yellow patches bounded by the veins and thrives in coastal humidity. Anthracnose and collar rot appear in waterlogged soil. Use a four year rotation and clear all crop debris at the end of the season, because that is where the fungi overwinter.
Harvest
Pick young and often, every other day in full production. A cucumber left to swell turns bitter, fills with hard seed and, worse, makes the plant stop producing. Always cut with scissors, leaving a short stalk. Bitterness concentrates at the stalk end and in the skin, so peel it if in doubt. Allow about 40 to 50 days from transplanting to the first harvest of this variety. The reference colour is dark green skin and greenish white flesh, and that is what tells you it is ready.
