A good cucumber year

I won my last 3 shows with my cucumber exhibits culminating in this monster at Sturton. The variety is 'Femdam' which I've grown for a number of years and it seems to suit me. At all the top shows you see the variety 'Carmen' to the fore but I tried it only once and struggled with it.

The trick is to train your plants along horizontal canes to allow the fruits to hang down in order to grow straight. You may have to shield them from the coarse leaves which can easily mark the skins. I use pieces of polystyrene sheet for this purpose. And whatever you do, don't knock off the flower from the end.....the judges will prefer it left on as it shows the fruits have been grown fast

Thinking about it, I applied quite a bit of horse manure in the Spring to the greenhouse border soil mainly with the intention of helping the onions I was going to plant there. This must have helped the cucumbers which were also grown in that border after the onions had been harvested. They obvioulsy liked getting their feet into some well rotted horse muck.