pick of the day: lemon cucumber

Earlier this summer, I collected seeds and starts from a variety of places around my home in Portland, OR. But perhaps my favorite of those places was the Silverton Farmer’s Market in Silverton, OR – a town that holds a special place in my heart. Among the very few booths in Town Square Park on Saturday mornings, there was one that sold good-looking starts of all kinds… well, not of all kinds but somehow exactly what I was looking for every time and more. I visited them a few times and now have a lovely handful of veggies growing from their starts in my garden. One of the starts I brought home was Lemon Cucumber.

I had never had a Lemon Cucumber before and without even attempting to figure out what the name implied, exactly, I planted it and waited for the vegetable mystery to unfold. I suppose part of me assumed that it would simply be a cucumber with a slight tinge of lemon. Oh no. Lemon Cucumber does not taste like a lemon – it looks like a lemon, and it’s fabulous! Imagine my delight when I f0und my plant growing whitish-yellow ovular little things!

They’re very good. The taste is not far off from a ‘normal’ cucumber but they’re refreshing, they’re a convenient size and they look awesome in the garden!

I made a lovely summer salad with my first one. I topped a bed of mixed baby greens with roasted hazelnut (an Oregon specialty I have grown to appreciate enormously), goat cheese, heirloom tomato, oliveoil-citrus-shallot dressing and my cute little Lemon Cucumber. Mmm.