When Cucumbers Go Wild. . .

Subtitled: I Went Out of Town For Four Days, Then When I Got Home It Rained All Day, Then I Was Busy And Forgot To Check The Cucumber Patch For About Three More Days.


And when I did check, this is what I found:

Yes, that odd colored vegetable larger than my hand is a cucumber.  A pickling cucumber, to be precise.  Not green, and not pickle sized any longer.  Nope, it is an overgrown, golden yellow, thing.  All because first I was gone from home, then God provided a good inch or more of water in a 24-hour period and then I didn't get out to the garden and check on the progress of my pickling cukes until they were way past the stage where they are usable.  A good hundred or more "baby dills", wasted.

Gardener FAIL!

Sick at heart, I pulled off all those yellow monster cukes.  The ones that were still greenish, I put into a large basket.  And then another.  The golden ones I left in a pile at the edge of the garden.

The greenish (and a few actually still green) ones I took to the house.  Where we immediately made several batches of refrigerator pickles, as well as ate cucumbers for snacks.  Then I made a couple canner loads of hamburger dills.

Then we gave away a dozen or so big cukes to DH's sister.  Then DS2 came to visit for the weekend, and we gave him another dozen or so to take home and eat.  Then I made a batch of gazpacho (which uses cukes) to have for dinner with the BLTs I had on the menu.  And I still have a basket of cukes as wide as my dishwasher left.

There is also the matter of all the completely yellow cukes.  Some went to the chickens, who will eat overgrown cucumbers as long as I crack them open first.  Some went to the woods, to the critters that live there.  (Do deer like yellow cucumbers?  Let's conduct an experiment!)  Some reside in my garage, their fate as of yet undetermined.

The moral of the story:  Don't forget to check your cucumber patch regularly.  Especially after a good amount of rain!

Second moral of the story:  Don't be afraid to be creative with overgrown cucumbers.  If they aren't totally yellow, they are still edible, just not as little pickles!  

Third moral of the story:  Don't forget that livestock are good means of disposing of veggies gone wild.