Some cucumbers, like this tasty Muncher variety, are called "burpless." I never really paid much attention to the term, but before I used it here to describe this cucumber I figured I better find out exactly what it means. In digging around online, I came across this very scientific study from the Cucurbit Breeding Project at North Carolina State University, Raleigh undertaken by project director Todd Wehner. The project personnel work on breeding and genetics research of pickling and slicing cucumber, seeded and seedless watermelon, and luffa (loofah) sponge gourd. Wehner set out to determine if burpless cucumbers actually cause less burping or if it was more of a marketing term for oriental trellis cucumbers, of which Muncher is one. So, he fed so called burpless cucumbers to both burp-prone and non-burp prone judges. Although the results were not extremely conclusive, he did find slightly less gastric upset when burpless cucumbers were eaten. To read the entire study, visit http://cuke.hort.ncsu.edu/cucurbit/wehner/articles/art090.pdf.

This photo is a close up of an immature cucumber with the female flower still attached. The actual size of this baby cuke is about .25 inches. If you are only growing one king of cucumber, you don't need to worry about cross pollination. But if you, or your neighbors, are growing different varieties of cucumber, you will need to learn how to identify female and male flowers in order to hand pollinate. We'll be adding more seed saving info to the website. If you would like to come to one of our fall seed saving workshops, please sign up to be on our email list. Thanks!

25 seeds per pack.