Beautiful exterior of cucumber is often deceptive, fragrant crispy vegetable can quite be bitter. Even at ideal leaving the gardeners remain in perplexity - why cucumbers taste bitter? Unfortunately, not always the person can protect harvest from aggression of the external environment, but minimize risk possibly if to follow rules of care for this gentle vegetable.
What has caused bitterness?
At all cucumbers there is substance kukurbitatsin, but only the surplus impacts it to cucumbers bitter relish. Superfluous kukurbitatsin appears in fruits under adverse conditions of cultivation. It can be lack of moisture, nutrients, sharp temperature drops and also too low or high temperature and dry sunny weather.
Emergence of bitter cucumbers can be provoked by the wrong watering when after hot weather of plant water with cold water. It delays maturing of fruits, and they become bitter. Similar can occur when changing weather when after long heat there comes cold and rainy weather.
In hot sunny weather the cucumber saves itself from heat and burns the fact that it delays development of fruits, and instead of 10-12dny from the moment of pollination the maturing drags on for much bigger term. For this reason the cucumbers have bitterish taste.
Many gardeners like to feed up plants fresh manure. Better for this purpose to use the rerotting fertilizer since in the course of decomposition of fresh manure gases and pathogenic putrefactive microflora, poisonous for root system, are formed. All this not in the best way affects taste of cucumbers.
What to consider and how it is possible to improve situation?
First of all, choosing seeds, pay attention to grade. Most often bitter cucumbers occur among those grades which have smooth fruits and dark green coloring.
It is difficult to neutralize bitterness, but it is possible. For this purpose fruits ret at several o'clock in water, previously having cut off tips. Water is changed, if necessary, several times.
Bitterness absolutely leaves cucumbers at preservation therefore, anyway, the harvest will not be gone.
There is also such way to bring bitterness out of fruit: to cut off ""buttocks"" and the received lid to rub the place of cut with circular motions. At the same time foam which the unpleasant taste leaves is formed.