Days to Maturity: 55 to 65
All-America Selections (AAS) Winner 1935
An heirloom variety and highly popular garden plant, Straight Eight Cucumber, a Cucumis sativus cultivar, sometimes called the standard or stubby cucumber, is grown as a fruit vegetable. Likely the most recognized variety with home gardeners, Straight Eight sets deep green cylindrical fruits that are about 8 inches long and 2 inches wide. This dual-purpose cucumber can be eaten fresh or canned.
Straight Eight Cucumber, an herbaceous annual, is a member of the cucurbit family (Curcurbitaceae). Cucumbers are tropical plants that love warm temperatures and high humidity, but Straight Eight is widely adapted, and with proper care, grows well in just about any conditions and produces continuously. Dependable and high yielding, it grows vigorously, quickly forming a low-growing, far-spreading vine. Training the tendril-bearing vines to grow vertically on a support produces straighter fruit, helps prevent disease, and makes harvests easier.
Easy to grow from seed, Straight Eight prefers full sun and loose, rich, slightly acid, well-drained soil. Cucumbers require frequent watering for proper growth, but leaves should be kept dry. If watered too infrequently, fruits will be bitter tasting. Harvest cucumbers when young before they over ripen and turn yellow. Harvest often to promote heavier fruit production.
Straight Eight Cucumber is monecious, producing both male and female flowers, and does not need a second plant for pollination. But the female flowers must receive pollen from the male flowers to set fruit, which is usually carried out by bees. So, it may be helpful to plant bee-attracting plants, like marigolds and zinnias, nearby to ensure pollination. Open pollinated, it produces seed that will grow true to variety, ideal for seed saving.
A warm-season vegetable, sensitive to cold temperatures and frost, cucumber seed can be direct sown into warm spring soil after the last frost date, or it can be started indoors 4 to 6 weeks before the last frost date and transplanted into the garden or containers after all danger of frost has passed. Succession plant another crop at 4 weeks for a longer harvest time. Flowers begin to set fruit with night temperatures between 55° and 75°F. Protect plants with row covers if temperatures are expected to dip below 50°F. Mulching also helps to moderate soil temperature as well as to maintain soil moisture and control weeds.
If you plan to start your seeds indoors, be sure to check out our Bio Dome Seed Starter Kit. With the Bio Dome, you can control the temperature, light, and soil mix to ensure your seeds become strong for transplant.
