'Kyoto Three Feet' Cucumber

Cucumis sativus Origin: Kyoto, Japan Improvement status: Cultivar Seeds per packet: ~15 Germination tested 12/2024: 94% Life cycle: Annual We spend a lot of time perusing the USDA's National Plant Germplasm System database, and every so often we find an entry so tantalizing we just can't resist trying it. This was the case with the 'Kyoto Three Feet' cucumber. We figured the name must be an exaggeration, for the only cucumbers we've ever encountered that get so long are actually not cucumbers at all, but melons — Cucumis melo — that are treated like cucumbers (like the "Armenian cucumber" type). This is a true cucumber, Cucumis sativus. We didn't have space to grow it ourselves — with plans to grow two other cucumbers already — so we sent the seeds to grower Jason Mills in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. He spent one year increasing the seeds, starting with the very small sample provided to us by the government, then did a much larger grow-out the second year. We only have Jason's photos and descr