Sunday, February 6, 2011

Cucumber Glut!


Cucumbers are one of the easiest vegetables to grow, they grow just about anywhere, & as long as you have a fence or something for them to climb on you can be assured of a bumper crop! This year I decided to grow Mini Munchers and Parisian Pickling Cucumbers, and I have not been disappointed (oh and there is a rogue Lebanese Cucumber growing amongst the mint and parsley). Last year I had 6 cucumber vines and I had too many, so this year I have again 6 cucumber vines and still have far too many. So this year I have decided to pickle my excess cucumbers as well as give them away to neighbours and friends. Here is a simple pickling recipe.



Ingredients
750 g of small cucumbers sliced finely
2/3 cup of fresh dill leaves chopped finely
2 tsp black peppercorns
750 ml water
125 ml white wine vinegar
1 1/2 tbs coarse salt


  • Wash cucumbers, dry well and thinly slice, then layer evenly in a clean jar with the dill and peppercorns.
  • Combine water, vinegar and salt in a saucepan, bring to the boil over a medium heat, carefully pour the hot liquid over the cucumbers and seal jar and set aside in the fridge for one week to pickle before serving.
There is nothing quite like a freshly picked cucumber, the difference between the ones in the store and the ones picked fresh of the vine is in the proof of the tasting and they are so good I often pick one and eat it like an apple it is so crisp and juicy on a hot Summer's day. So if you have a fence and a patch of dirt I recommend popping in some cucumber seeds and you won't be disappointed. Happy Gardening!

8 comments:

  1. Looks like you have a lovely crop there, Sarah. Unfortunately they can be a bit tricky to grow in a cool climate as I found out last summer, and first one plant died off, then the replacement did the same.

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  2. Oh dear, we have such hot humid weather here that they grow faster than you can possibly imagine. Can you grow them in a glass house and then transplant them at the height of summer?

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  3. I could if I had a glass house, but I don't. I managed to grow a plant under a cloche the year before, but we only had one or two small cucumbers on it. They seem to need careful handling.

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  4. Hi! I am very new at gardening and I LOVE cucumbers- so I completely ignored the instructions on the seed packet that said 3 plants to a hill. I have 4 hills in my raised bed, and I left about a dozen vines to grow on each hill!! I built 6 trellises' all spread out so they would have room to grow and at first they were 6 foot high, they went right over...so now its 10 ft high and they are just about to the top. I planted them (from seed) May 1st, and I still have nothing coming in...did I overdo it? My neghbor did 2 vines with a 3 foot fence and she has 4 cucumbers already! We are super competitive and I can't bear knowing that she may have beaten me and with so little effort on her part!

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