What Can I Do with All These Cucumbers?!?

My cucumbers are thriving in my garden this year! I think I've said this before, but I attribute that to giving them plenty of space and having a nice trellis for them to climb (and already overtake!).

Exhibit 1: Discovered this cucumber, hidden and overgrown,
the other day. Here it is next to a couple of perfectly sized zucchinis!

But I'm harvesting a couple cucumbers a day, and I'm not seeing an end to that. So what in the world will I do with them, aside from sharing with my co-workers? Zucchini is easier - lots of options to mix zucchini in with any number of dishes. (Here are a few of my favorite zucchini recipes ...)

One of the great benefits of gardening is that you suddenly have a bunch of produce, and you have to come up with creative ways to use it! It's great motivation because you certainly don't want to throw it out and while I don't mind sharing produce, I would like to use as much of it as possible at my own house (until we get sick of it!).

So I'm on a mission to find some new cucumber recipes to try. I'm going to link to them here, and then try them out over the next week or two. Then I'll let you know how they went!

Here are three cucumber recipes that go beyond just throwing them in a salad (which I will also do). These are all from allrecipes.com, one of my favorite places to find good recipes, mostly because the review system is excellent! I often learn more from the reviewers than from the people submitting the recipes.

The Fruits of My Labor: Tomatoes, Cucumbers and Strawberries

All is not lost in my garden. I tend to focus on a lot of problems in my journey toward being a gardener, including the persistent flea beetles and my struggling bell peppers, but I am having some wins.

For example, my Christmas Grape tomatoes are doing as well already as they did last year, in the same location in the garden. Here's the first ripening tomato! I plan to eat it soon!

And my beefsteak tomato is doing better than last year's attempt.

On the Bright Side ... My Cucumbers Are Looking Great!

So while I'm struggling a little with two of my pepper plants (well, just one now that I know what that black stem was), my cucumbers are doing great!

And they are starting to climb my new trellis that I love, so far, from Gardener's Supply.

Cucumbers on my trellis from Gardeners Supply.

When I return from vacation, I anticipate I'll see more than what appear to be very small pickles hanging off that vine. The two cucumber plants already look better than the two I had last year.