Overwhelmed by my garden!

Sometimes the garden bounty is too much. My plans for my cucumbers this year included pickling with some jalapenos to create hot pickles for my brother for Christmas. I have never pickled anything before--a new task for me to try--and an easy way to create a gift. Or so I thought. However, early destruction of half my cucumber plants had me worried that I would not have enough to make pickles.

I also started the Early Jalapeno peppers later than the rest of my seedlings so I had blossoms on my cucumbers while the pepper was still growing. Okay, poor planning on my part but I could still pickle my cucumbers, right? If I catch them in time.

Every time I visit the garden, which is daily with all the green beans coming in, I find another slicing cucumber or two. While this is not bad alone, I wanted pickling cucumbers, which are smaller, and I am only one person. I like cucumbers but not that much! So what do I do? Hope I catch the cucumbers earlier and give away my produce. I would have thought with only two plants, I could keep up with the cucumbers but I have proven that false. The darn things hide, I swear!

Here is hoping I run out of cucumbers before I run out of neighbors and friends!