Vegetables

Cucumber and the Greek vegetable calendar

Field cucumbers are a summer crop, but there is fresh Greek cucumber all year because the winter crop comes from greenhouses — mostly at Tympaki and Ierapetra on Crete and in Messinia, Ilia and Laconia in the Peloponnese. Do not put it in the coldest part of the fridge: below 10°C it suffers chilling injury and within two or three days develops water-soaked, sunken patches. Keep it away from apples and tomatoes as well, because cucumber is extremely sensitive to the ethylene they give off and can yellow in a single day. Among the other vegetables, wild greens and cabbages belong to winter, artichokes run from March to May, peas and broad beans arrive in spring, while tomatoes, aubergines and peppers — along with Santorini cherry tomatoes (PDO), picked in July and August — are summer crops.