Cucumber Flowers!

"FLOWERS!!!" 

My neighbors probably heard my excited yell through closed windows.  For that matter, people on the next block probably heard me, as well.

But who cares?!

I
have
Flowers!

Yay!!!

I'm in complete disbelief, right now.  It's happy disbelief, of course, but I'm still having a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that after being in the ground for less than two weeks, the bush cucumber plants have grown at a rapid rate, and they've produced flowers!

Well, ok... only one has produced flowers.  Three beautiful, star-shaped, yellow blooms, to be exact.  The other has tons of buds just waiting to open, so I figure that kinda counts, right?

You probably remember the itty bitty, rather weak cucumber transplants I placed into mounds within the wild side of the garden.

I didn't expect much.  I hoped, of course, that I'd have beautiful cucumber bushes that would provide yumminess galore, but I didn't want to get my hopes up.  The transplants were kind of weak, and I've never planted cucumbers before.  Indeed, I'm still worried that they'll succumb to black walnut toxicity at a later date.

But for now, they make my smile a little larger.  We're in the middle of a nasty heat wave, with temperatures rising higher than those in my old desert southwest home, and the humidity makes it seem that much hotter.  I'm doing ok.  I'm one of the lucky ones that has a/c installed.  My plants, however...

Let's just say that a few of them may not survive the heat.

The fact that the cucumber bushes are thriving is very exciting, because of this!

I wonder how long I have to wait before I see cucumbers begin to grow.  Do cucumbers self pollinate?  How big will the fruit get?

I have so many questions... and I love it!!!