There’s a special smell that comes with rotting cucumbers.
When you save cucumbers for seed, you let them get big and yellow. And you might stack them in a bin for a few weeks to let them get even more yellow and mature. (And maybe because you forgot to deal with them on time.)
The bottom of that bin is where you get that special cucumber smell.
Now I did not take a picture of that bin, so you’ll just have to imagine what it looked like, and what it smelled like.
Here’s what cucumber seed cleaning looks like at Tourne-Sol:
Slice cucumbers along the side.
(Make sure not to cut through the center of the fruit where the seeds are.)
Take one half and scoop out seeds with your hands
Let ferment for a couple of days
Fermentation is on – still bubbling a bit.
Pour the seeds into a colander and spray off the bubbles and remaining juice.
Seeds are looking pretty clean
Put in a mesh bag (with a clear label) and put into the drying racks
These are the fans that we put on the stack of wet seeds. The fans pull air out through the top.
Don’t forget to clean out the bottom of that bin where you had the cucumbers waiting to be cleaned. No need to make that special smell any more special.
My next free online workshop will be later in October ..
More details coming soon!