In A Pickle

My cucumber plants have been producing like crazy, and I've been canning pickles like crazy! Last year, I was able to can only one batch of Bread & Butter pickles before the blight hit and killed all my cucumber plants. So far this year, I've canned 13 half-pints of Dill Relish, 39 pints of Hamburger Dills, 17 quarts of Kosher Style Dills, 9 pints of Kosher Style Dills, and 20 pints of Bread & Butter Pickles. At this rate, I don't think I'll need to grow cucumbers for at least the next two years! I'm averaging about 10 pounds of pickling cucumbers a day, but I'm almost out of jars now, and I can't see canning much more when we don't eat that many pickles.When I pick the cucumbers in the morning, I have to be careful not to disturb the bees that are pollinating them. I had been good so far, until last night when I was attempting to pull the vines that were escaping from the garden back in. Apparently, I angered one bee too much and was stung! There's also a garter snake that likes to hide amongst the vines. I saw him yesterday and was surprised by how much he'd grown since the last time I'd seen him (or maybe it's a different one!).

Even when I harvest the cucumbers every day, I find monster cucumbers like the one show below. The cucumber on top is your standard 4-inch 2.6 oz pickling cucumber. The one on the bottom got to be more than 7 inches and 15.10 oz!

Normally, when the cucumbers get that big, they have huge seeds in them, but I'm finding that this year, they haven't had huge seeds, and I've been able to use many of them in salads or on cucumber sandwiches. Any cucumbers that aren't good enough for making pickles or eating fresh get fed to the chickens who love them.


Currently growing:

Asparagus, peas, broccoli, spaghetti squash, zucchini, summer squash, butternut squash, pumpkins?, tomatoes, orange mint, dill, parsley, basil, beets, raspberries, strawberries, beef

Currently harvesting:

peas, green beans, purple string beans, broccoli, spaghetti squash, basil, parsley, orange mint, zucchini, summer squash, eggs

What we're eating:
Breakfast: Zucchini pancakes (made with our eggs and zucchini),
Lunch: cucumber sandwiches (made with our cucumbers) with three bean salad (made with our green and purple string beans) and Caprese salad (made with our tomatoes and basil),
Dinner: tacos (made with our own beef and served with fresh tomatoes from the garden)