I must have bought hundreds of cucumbers wrapped in plastic over the years so it hardly seemed worth growing any myself. However, last year I did, and although my outdoor cucumbers did not look particularly smooth or straight they tasted deliciously nutty and crisp. So this year I will be growing outdoor ones again, hoping that temperatures hover between an ideal 15 and 20C. I shall also be trying an indoor cucumber and I can already picture myself eating wafer-thin sandwiches on a perfect summer’s day.

Cucumbers need warmth and heat and they actively resent it when temperatures fall to 10C outdoors. Many gardeners tuck a cucumber at the back of the greenhouse and just one plant is plenty for most — especially if it is the prolific variety ‘Telegraph’.

Cucumbers have an interesting history. They originally came for India and although it’s said that they are depicted in wall paintings in the tomb of King Nakht (c1400 BC), the slender fruits are in fact chate melons and not cucumbers. When William Tynedale translated the Bible in the 16th century he mistakenly wrote about a garden of cucumbers in Isaiah, but again they would have been chate melons (from Cabbages and Kings by Jonathon Roberts).

Research at Fishbourne Palace in West Sussex suggests that cucumbers were being grown in the garden by the Romans. We also know that the Emperor Tiberius had a passion for cucumbers and his gardeners strived to grow them all year long using portable cold frames. Henry VIII felt the same and Columbus even took seeds to the New World. The Victorians grew them widely and the straight cucumber was desirable even then. Long glass jars were used to stop the fruit from curving.

Archaeologists have great problems separating melon and cucumber seeds so the origins are hard to pinpoint. When sowing flat seeds of this type always insert them into compost vertically as they can rot when laid flat. Cucumber seeds are eye-wateringly expensive so we need every plant we can get!

Seeds can still be sown in late-May and early June and generally I use small round pots, placing two seeds in each. Once the seedlings are large enough they are potted up individually and then placed outside (after the end of May) and given some support with canes and string. Avoid windy situations and, once the cucumbers have been in the ground for two weeks, start to water them well. I leave them for the first two weeks in the belief that they will put down deeper roots as they search for moisture. But obviously if any plant flags — water it. Cucumbers needs lots of water, but the stems can rot if the plants are too wet.

Sinking a flower pot into the ground is a good system. Once the plant begins to fruit, water on a high potash tomato food to encourage more flower. Indoor varieties need warm and moist days and nights and you need to remove the male flowers and leave the female ones (with the swelling on the stem behind the petals. There are all-female varieties and they include ‘Euphya’ from Marshalls and ‘Bella’ from Suttons.

Outdoor cucumbers are plumper and about six inches in length. The skin tends to be spiny so pick them young and peel them if it bothers you. They are more beneficial eaten with their skins on as all the antioxidants are in the dark skin.

‘Masterpiece’ and ‘Marketmore’ are both AGM outdoor varieties. Do not remove the flowers on outdoor varieties, however, as they need to cross fertilise.