Cucumber Mania

Usually you hear about home gardeners being overrun by their zucchini crop. For some reason, our plants aren't big producers this year. We're getting zucchini, but not more than we can handle. In fact, on SUnday I had to use some of last year's frozen (shredded) zucchini to make our favorite summer cake: Chocolate Zucchini Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting. Yum!

But I digress from the topic at hand: cucumbers.

We started some of our own seeds in the springtime, but weren't confident that our plants would be successful once we transferred them to the garden. So, when my neighbor needed to thin her own seedlings, I happily took several and planted them beneath our blueberry bushes.

Fast-forward 2-3 months: This Sunday I picked 31 cucumbers. THIRTY-ONE!

I just thought I would go outside and grab one or two for dinner, but I kept finding another and then another and then another. (Please also note that about 4 weeks ago Damon picked 19 in one day, and 2 weeks ago I picked 13 at once.)

Adah & Maggie pose with our 31 cucumbers.

Everyone complains about too much zucchini. I've never heard of anyone lamenting an over-abundance of cucumber. Why is that? It seems to me that you can do a lot more with zucchini than cucumbers. I'm open to any new recipe ideas.

Meanwhile, we are enjoying all the bounty from our garden (1 of 4 beds seen above), and last night had a dinner that was almost entirely grown in our yard. We had some homemade pretzels along with all the home-grown veggies below.

Aren't the carrots cute? They have such a great flavor, too. This year is our best carrot crop ever, as well as best corn crop. I love having a garden---despite the overwhelming quantity of some plants.