I "harvested" my first cucumber of the season, and there are about 2 dozen more growing that will probably be ready to pick in about 2days. I thought I had planted all national pickling, turned out that one packet was actually Marketmore. My dumb mistake. Now what do I do with all of these big cucumbers? I had only planned on making pickles with the smaller ones.
Gazpacho! A delicious cold soup that is a real fresh vegetable treat using cucumbers, tomatoes and other goodies. There are several versions of cucumber soup, too. Prowl through http://www.recipesource.com for the specifics.
That's so great, Kanita. Cucumber salad would be really good.
I'm gonna plant cucumbers early next year.
Hey Quyen, they grow so easy and so many. And I love the plants themselves. But whats so bad is that I have 4 plants growing, and the 2 dozen are only on one. I'm trying to figure out how to preserve them. I think they are too big for pickles. I have plenty of seeds from my raid on Big Lots, so let me know if you need some.
Ther are lots of kinds of pickles, some recipes call for the larger cukes. Dills for example. My mother use to make those big yellow lime pickles from Improved long green cut into quatres lenght wise. Of course cross sliced bread and butter pickles )are great if you don't let them get too big.
Thanks Farmer Dill, I will give it a try.
A nice sweet and sour asian style refrigerator pickle:
Slice the cucumbers as thin as you can make them, and salt them to draw out the moisture. Let them sit for an hour or so, then ring them out in a clean linen kitchen towel to remove as much moisture as possible.
Meanwhile, mix enough rice vinegar to cover the cucumbers, sugar and chile pepper together in a non-reactive saucepan and heat til sugar is dissolved and the vinegar is just barely below the boil.
Remove from heat and cool for a few minutes, then toss with the squeezed cucumbers. Add some diced scallions or chives, toss to combine and chill for at least a night before serving. They are delicious and will last several weeks in the refrigerator. A staple in my house during the cucumber harvest.
Sad, I just harvested the last of this season's cukes. What a difference 3,000 miles, 10.4 degrees of latitude and 1600 feet of elevation will do to a growing season.) I kept a trellis of late cukes going under plastic for several weeks which gave me some ripening time after our first frost a few weeks ago, followed by days in the 60's and 70's
Grew a few varities this year in my first northern Adirondack garden to see what did well up here in Zone 4a. (Hi, leisurlee, across the pond.) . Picked a variety for next years main crop (Olympian, for yields of large cukes, long lasting vines, flavor and mildew resistance.) Also found the vines growing on the trellis made the best use of space on the raised beds in my garden. Next year I'll grow Olympians on the trellis and hope they'll all produce as well my one plant did this year.
Enjoy your cuke season! (I did mine.)
Wayne
Thanks for the recipe leisurelee, I tried it and it was great.
Thanks Wayne! I will definitely try the Olympian, as I do have a problem with powdery mildew. What other varieties of cukes did you grow? I have all of my vegetables growing on trellises, as I do all vertical gardening in order to save space. My garden is quite tiny.
I tried a few Homemade Pickle plants early in the season. They did fairly well considering the shady position I put them in. I tried unsuccessfully to get them to climb the sunflower stalks in a bed next to one with a trellis of snap peas and pole beans. I planted the sunflowers a little too late for this scheme to work.
I also grew a lot of American Slicing cukes in tha late part of our season. They're the ones that did well on the trellis though I had to spray with a milk solution pretty regularly to fight back the mildew.
I'll grow another batch of pickling cukes next year (and maybe actually make pickles) but the main crop will be the Olympians.
Evrn though my garden is on the large side, I also am trying to do a lot more vertical growing, alternating a bed of trellised/staked plants with a bed of low growers so as to not shade anything again.
Wayne
