trellising cucumbers question

Pickle or gherkin across the pond. Here is more than you want to know.

gherkin (n.)


small cucumber used for pickling (either a small, prickly type of cucumber produced by a certain plant (Cucumis anguria), or a green or immature common cucumber), 1660s, from early modern Dutch gurken, augurken (late 16c.) "small pickled cucumber," from East Frisian augurk "cucumber," probably from a Balto-Slavic source (compare Polish ogórek "cucumber," Lithuanian agurkas, Russian oguretsŭ), possibly ultimately from Medieval Greek angourion "a kind of cucumber," which is said to be from Persian angarah [Klein, etc.], but OED seems to regard this as unlikely. A Dutch source says the Greek is from a word for "immature" and that the vegetable originated in northern India and came to Eastern Europe via the Byzantine Empire.



The Dutch suffix is perhaps the diminutive -kin, though some regard it as a plural affix, with the Dutch word mistaken for a singular in English. The -h- was added 1800s to preserve the hard "g" pronunciation.

Definitions of gherkin from WordNet

gherkin (n.)
any of various small cucumbers pickled whole;
gherkin (n.)
small prickly cucumber

If you read this far, please forgive me. I was curious about the "gurk" root as it may have related to gurkha, the famous british mercenaries who carried "gurkha" knives that have a semi bent, possibly pickle shaped or boomerang shaped blade. The long winded pickle details were just part of all that.

 

There is plenty of info in that posting, mr Mechanic. I did not know all of that about origins and so forth. There is a lot to know about the little green augurk isn’t there. Who’da thunk.
What I do know is that the diminutive suffix for dutch nouns is “-je” and “-tje”.

 

Sjoerd, there must be many English words which I am not familiar with.
Not a problem. It's good to learn new things. Now if I just remember/.

 

The Gherkin, I am familiar with.

 

Getting back to cattle panels, they have become quite popular at our Community Garden. Almost a fad really! We bend them into an arch shape and grow stuff up them.

 

Cayuga, I think those panels would be scarce in my area.

 

Sjoerd, here are the piccies you requested of the trellised cucumbers. The trellis is an old iron barrier that was over the patio door when we moved here. I'm not sure what the previous owners feared, but it was something too big to get between bars six inches apart!

The smaller wire trellis you see on the right of the picture is holding our cherry tomato plant (at least for now.) If the cherry tomato continues to grow at the present rate, I may have to press another iron trellis into action!

 

Looks great MG

 

Really some tasty cukes in your future!

 

Thanks so much, Jane. That thing looks quite sturdy and I guess it will be able to take the full weight. Handy how you used that.

 

I made a trellis using trellis net and I weave them through the holes to train them to go up.

 

Clay, our fence is made of wire squares. I sort of weave the vines into the fence where needed. It seems to be working. I hope critters don't find any growing outside the fence!

 

They are getting larger.

 

Dirtmechanic, do you grow commercial or do you can all the ones you don't eat? Those are beautiful!
My cucumbers are still about 1/2 an inch. Not the best growing season here.

 

It is a fad - thanks to youtube vids