Q: My daughter has her first garden this year and she has gotten orange cucumbers. She says they never turned green. What could be wrong?

A: There are actually cucumber varieties that are yellow when mature. ‘Sunsweet’, ‘Chinese Yellow’ and ‘Lemon’ are real conversation starters. Naturally yellow-fruited cucumbers are said to be more nutritious than green cucumbers due to the carotene they contain.

However, your daughter’s cucumbers simply look overripe. In hot weather, cucumbers quickly go through the last part of their green ripe phase.

Yellowing skin is just the next step to maturing the seed so they can spill from the fruit when it rots. Over-mature fruit don’t taste very good.