Family Digs Cucumbers Through the Generations

Bob Florence, The StarPhoenix
Published: Tuesday, September 02, 2008

In the garden in their backyard, Lloyd and Sharon Lahti grow beets and beans and peas and potatoes. They're already digging into their second planting of carrots this year, plus their third crop of spinach.

"I don't grow tomatoes," says Lloyd, 64. "I can't for some reason; they just won't grow for me. Same with the corn."

Along their back fence grows a row of sunflowers, now round in the face and long in the legs.

"No self-respecting Doukhobor would be without sunflowers," Lloyd says. "I remember as a kid everyone getting together at my grandfather's on Sunday nights. We'd sit around in the kitchen with friends, spitting sunflower seeds on the bare floor and singing songs. Vecherooshki, we called it."

Lloyd's roots are in the old country. His great-grandmother was a Russian Doukhobor. Persecuted because of her pacifist religious beliefs, she left Russia and came to Canada, settling with a colony in the Blaine Lake area in 1899.

She was big into gardening. It's a passion that has been passed down in the family for years, each generation not only inheriting her green thumb, but also serving as guardians of her prized cucumbers.

This cucumber is also a Russian refugee, or so the family legend goes. They say it grew in the rich Georgian soil near the Black Sea. They say when the Doukhobors packed up and cleared out, they took with them a pouch of seeds from this cucumber, a variety which grows short, but sweet.

First grown in Blaine Lake at the turn of the 20th century, the cucumber is still in the family, dutifully planted by one member of the family or another for more than 100 years.

"Best cucumber ever," says Lloyd, the fourth-generation keeper of the cukes. "Anyone who has one says the same thing. They can't believe the taste."

Lloyd is sitting in the shade in his back yard on a hot afternoon, wearing old jeans and rubber boots. He has his shirt off; his skin tanned a caramel brown.

When Sharon arrives with plate of sliced cucumber, you can smell it right away; a garden freshness that fills the air.

"I eat 20 to 25 of them a day," Lloyd says. "They're juicy, not bitter, have a nice smooth skin."

He talks of these cucumbers with relish.

"I used to hate gardening," he says. "The rest of the neighbour kids would be over at Johnny's Inn for soft drinks and there I was in mother's garden, pulling the portulaca."

Lloyd went on to attend Aden Bowman Collegiate and studied commerce at the University of Saskatchewan. He got a job with Sears down east, working as a buyer in the toy department, but after awhile grew weary of the daily 51-kilometre commute between Burlington and Toronto. Returning to Saskatchewan, he and Sharon got into the hotel business in Radisson, Asquith, Yorkton and Vanscoy.

Lloyd now lives in the house in Saskatoon where he was raised. His father built this house in 1958. His mother planted in this garden.

A cucumber patch occupies the biggest part of Lloyd and Sharon's garden. They planted 41/2 rows of cucumbers this year.

"We planted on May 16 and did the first picking July 29," Sharon says, reading from the log book where Lloyd has it all written down, accountant style.

From each season's crop they set aside 15 to 20 cucumbers to provide seeds for the next year. They start the plants indoors in early spring, then by mid-May they get digging. Lloyd hoes the rows, Sharon does the planting. To avoid damaging the sprouts, Sharon plants the young cucumbers with tweezers.

Later, when the cucumbers start to flower, Sharon pollinates each one by hand.

Lloyd gives them a good soaking every second day.

"They're my pride and joy," he says. "Hey, it's not only me. Mom, the grandkids, they're always asking 'How are the cukes doing?'

"Funny, nobody ever seems to ask about the spuds."

Summer is ending. Soon, Lloyd and Sharon will be on their way south to Las Vegas, their home in the off-season.

"For six months I have the biggest case of withdrawal," Lloyd says. "I can't wait until spring."

Deep in December, anticipation begins for the next growing season. Oh, for another taste of cucumber. So crisp. So cool.

"When we were down there a couple of winters ago I got to thinking: 'What if the house back home catches fire? What'll happen to the seeds? You can't get these in at a garden store. If I lose them, they're gone.' I was sick thinking about it.

"So you know what I did?"

Lloyd leans in close, sharing a secret.

"I keep the seeds in my safe deposit box now."