First year in new home, so I only have tomatoes in pots this year. We've harvested 3 cherry tomatoes so far, but lots of tomatoes starting to ripen.

I'm sorry I have no experience with cooking cucumbers.

My neighbor does cucumbers up in a stir fry, delicious.

A......

If you can get your hands on the Victory Garden Cookbook, they have lots of vegetable recipes, including the cucumber ones below. I imagine googling would also come up with a lot of recipes.

I'm having a cucumber glut now too, Uzbekski, North Carolina Pickling, and Lemon. They are all easy to save seeds from.
I cooked them last year. They can be sauteed, braised, stuffed, etc. They are generally peeled and seeded. If you want to reduce water you salt them and let them drain a while- I don't really do this as I don't want the extra salt. I should cook some tonight, I have a big bag of over-the-hill ones since I had company and didn't get them picked when smaller.

The VGC likes them sauteed in butter. They mix them with tomatoes and herbs and serve on pasta, or season with dill, or add heavy cream and cook it down a little to coat.

They can be made into a cold sauce with dill, heavy cream, mayonnaise, lemon juice, and salt/pepper, or substitute yogurt or sour cream.

I have cooked a cream soup with them from the Julia Child recipe that adds cooked onions or shallots, chicken broth, dill, salt/ppr, to the cucumbers and thickens it some with farina. Add whatever else you want to throw in for seasoning, cook, puree, and add sour cream. It thickens up nicely and has a nice delicate flavor. I made it without the chicken stock myself, just the veggies. Or if you have leftover chicken you can add cubes after pureeing.

To stuff baked cucumbers, peel, slice off the ends, scoop out seeds leaving a hollow cylinder, salt to remove excess water if you want, stuff with any meat, cheese, rice, onions, spinach, herbs, egg, etc, replace ends to hold in filling with toothpicks, saute on all sides until colored (whatever that means), place in baking dish and bake 35 min. at 375*F, baste. Eat hot or cold.

I also have an abundance of cucumbers- never thought of cooking them. My favorite uses (other than just sliced and eaten) are cucumber-yogurt salad, seasoned with toasted mustard seed, lime juice and cayenne pepper, and tabouleh salad, heavy on the cucumbers.

I'm jealous. My cukes got a late start (gardener error) and are only 1" long. Interesting recipes, though.

I'm being creative with pattypan squash these days. They make charming little stuffed squash - hollowed out like a jack-o-lantern with the lid put back on.

Many thanks to everyone..
Sea Jen: don't worry yours will grow also.Make sure they have lots of water (keep on the moist side) You may want to give them some food..They will catch up..

I start cucumbers and squash under lights 6 weeks before setting out about June 15 and use tunnels to keep them warm, that's why they are producing already. What do you do, Scarleta?

I've been experimenting with lasagna gardens this year and have some success...and some almost failures. The tomatoes are huge..but mostly greenery and the fruit is wrinkled so I guess I should have watered more even though the lasagna stayed moist. Picked the first ripe ones yesterday. The acorn squash have taken over the bed and are climbing the fence now and are setting squash. I planted a row of corn in a brand new lasagna bed and it is doing well. It was nothing but grass clippings and shredded paper with a small amount of compost. I thought it would get a foot high and then keel over. Not so, it just keeps growing and even though I planted late, is starting to tassle. Another last minute bed is woodchips and grass clippings (obviously the grass is growing this cool summer) with only enough compost to plant seeds in. Last week, I seeded this one with parsnip seeds and last night it looked like every one had germinated! This in my experience is very unusual. They usually take ages to germinate and then are spotty. There are so many coming up I thought they were weeds! Meanwhile the beans are producing well and one of the best veggies this year has been the peas. With all of the cool weather they are still producing. It's been quite fun trying this type of gardening.

Hemanancy: I start my cukes in the greenhouse and plant them outside when its warm.They like it hot and wet.So I put them where is always wet and they get sun as long as the weather cooperates.I don't seem to have any troubles with cukes and get lots out of just a few planted.I think wet is what they like as much as heat.I have no control of heat, but I plant them in a wet spot..I have already consumed all my 1st crop of corn.Have lots of beans, squash and zucchini also.Planted 2nd crop of peas, oriental greens ( the 1st crop was consumed by slugs) Lots of tomatoes also.Its nice to go" shopping" right to your garden..

not much of a garden this years as we have a newborn and he takes up alot of my time, along with work. but i managed to pot two tomatoes and a chili pepper plant. one of my tomatoes are ding well and producing fruit although i have yet to pick them. the other is suffering from some type of disease. no peppers yet but lots of blooms. two small chinese windmill palms are thriving having survied the big blizzard uncovered that hit bellingham. i will install lasagna beds this fall and plant veggies in the backyard (if my dogs don't eat them they love fruits/veggies) and flowers shrubs in the front of the house. I am now collecting matrials and looking for a fall leaves hook up. I live in a newer developement with few mature trees.

Scarleta- I figured you must start them early to have them now. What kind of corn do you grow? One year I had sensational SE corn but other SE's I have tried have done very badly, and I can't remember the name of the good one. I'm getting lots of beans now, I have a very early heirloom pole bean called Grandma Robert's Purple Pole. My other pole beans are a little later but will be great if the deer don't get through my fencing. I went out today and found they had broken down my fence protecting my Aronia berries and eaten all they could reach. The beans are just behind them and they ate the leaves off the end vine. This is a new development, the fences had been working."-(

I have about 55 varieties of tomatoes this year, with 90 plants (down from around 100 varieties the last 2 years, I've been doing trialing), but this is the last year I'm going to plant so many. They have been rather slow but I'm starting to get some- so far IPB, Verna's Orange Oxheart, and Siberian Pink. I had my first set of transplants get a bad fungal infection under lights that slowed things down.

Wild Red Kale does great and overwinters for me, as well as collards, turnips left in the ground for spring greens, and sprouting broccoli.

Hemnancy: I grow cream and peaches corn.Its all finished with now.THe second crop was really very small so I removed the plants now to make room for oriental greens and other things like turnips etc..Can't remember when I started cukes exactly...

Thanks, Scarleta. I'm growing an heirloom this year that is very slow. Maybe it will still bear some ears. I'm getting a lot of pole beans now. I grow heirlooms- Jeminez, Grandma Robert's Purple Pole, Uncle Steve's, and Tobacco Worm. My beans this year show signs of hybridizing so I'm not sure what to do about it. I like to grow all of them since they make a succession of ripening but don't want to mix them all up.:-(

More of my tomatoes are starting to ripen and some have really good fruit set. I've had to spend a lot of time tying them up.

Yes I use tomatoe cages and it helps a lot, you need to get the really big ones.Hard to find because the small ones don't work.If you keep the succers removed it will be easy to keep them under control.I have cut all tops off quite some time ago to give existing ones time and energy to grow to their full potential.We made so much tomatoe sauce last year that we still have enough.I have enough tomatoes planted so i really do not need to have them keep producing any longer.

Try baking the cukes after seeding and slicing. They are fabulous. Julia Child had a recipe years ago in her original cookbook that I loved, but that was before I became concerned about what I was eating. Thanks for bringing back the memories. I may cook then again for a treat.