9 Tips for Dealing with Massive Cucumber Harvests

For inexperienced growers, it’s always a great idea to start with crops that are easy to grow and abundant producers. Green beans, tomatoes, and summer squashes are classic choices, as are cucumbers.

The fortunate downside to growing these crops is that they often provide way more produce than a gardener, or even a gardener’s family, can dream of eating. Luckily, veggies like green beans and tomatoes are easy to preserve, simply by freezing them.

With cucumbers, though, the massive harvest can be a bit overwhelming. Pickles are great, but how many jars of pickles does someone need? What‘s a successful cucumber grower supposed to do with all these cucumbers? And, they keep coming!

Well, some things can be done… It’ll help. There will likely still be a lot of cucumbers. It’s just the nature of the vine.

We’ll split this into two categories: Preserving cucumbers and inventive uses.

Preserving Cucumbers

The big issue with cucumbers, which do last for a good while before going off, is that preserving them often results in losing the crunchy, fresh essence of the cucumber.

Pickles

To be honest, refrigerator pickles are a personal favorite. Some garlic, dill, salt, pepper, a bit of mustard seed, and vinegar in a jar with about three days to soak it in. They’ll keep easily for a month (longer for those who are more daring) in the fridge.

On the other hand, canning pickles for months to come is more often a letdown. They tend to get mushy. Relish might be a better option as the missing crunch doesn’t feel so disappointing.

Infused Vinegar

Mixing cucumbers and vinegar doesn’t always have to be about the pickles. It can be about the vinegar as well. Using fewer cucumbers and plenty of fresh herbs and spices, vinegar can be infused with a lovely summer-garden flavor that’ll spruce up salads well into the wintertime.

Get some apple cider vinegar (or, even better, make some) in a mason jar. Add the cucumbers, spices, and herbs. Let it meld for about 6-8 weeks.

Infused Booze

Cucumber cocktails are a party winner, and it’s easy to make cucumber-infused vodka or gin at home. Just buy whatever brand of booze you like. Put a large sliced cucumber in a quart jar and pour the vodka or gin over it.

Put the concoction in the fridge for at least a week, sampling the liquor for the desired flavor level. Then, strain out the cucumber and store the cucumber vodka or gin in the fridge or freezer.

Frozen Cucumbers

Cucumbers can be frozen. It’s just important to understand that they will not be the cucumbers we know and love when they thaw. They’ll be a mushy mess.

However, a mushy mess of cucumbers can work fine for making chilled cucumber soup, cucumber drinks, and cucumber sauces. So, freezing some with that caveat can work.

Inventive Uses

Most of us have cucumbers either in pickle form or raw as a salad. Otherwise, they are largely overlooked in the kitchen. But, they are more versatile than we give them credit for.

Drinks

Boozy drinks, smoothies, lemonade, and even water can feature cucumbers. They have a cool, fresh flavor that feels on-point in the summertime. Green mojito juice is another winner, though it doesn’t have the rum.

Cucumber Sauces

Cucumber isn’t generally cooked because the real allure of it is the fresh flavor profile. However, it’s fantastic for blending into fresh sauces. Avocado and cucumber make an amazing, creamy pasta sauce. Plain vegan yogurt and cucumber make a great sauce (tzatziki) for Mediterranean meals.

Raw “Noodles”

As with zucchini, cucumbers can be sliced very thin to become “noodles” for healthy gluten-free meals. Try sweet and sour cucumber carrot noodles, lentil coconut curry with pesto cucumber noodles, or cucumber noodle salad with mint-tahini dressing.

Cucumber Soup

Many summer soups are served chilled which fits right into the cucumber’s wheelhouse. It blends nicely with fresh dill or basil. It also can feature in gazpacho.

Cucumber Treats

Blended-up cucumber with a bit of sugar, mint, and lime makes a delicious popsicle. It also blends well with watermelon to make popsicles. It can also be used to make a green juice sorbet.

Lastly, when all else fails and there are still cucumbers to harvest, they can be used to make friends with the neighbors. Lots of people—those who don’t have a garden of their own teeming with cucumbers—will appreciate a few homegrown cukes.

Related Content:

• 7 Things to Do with Your Overabundance of Homegrown Cucumbers and Summer Squash
• How to Grow Cucumbers and Fun Ways to Use Them
• 15 Reasons to Get Excited About Cucumbers This Summer
• 8 Tips on Fall Growing, Harvesting, and Foraging
• 10 Vegan Cucumber Recipes That Will Cool You Off This Summer

Easy Ways to Help the Planet:

• Eat Less Meat: Download Food Monster, the largest plant-based Recipe app on the App Store, to help reduce your environmental footprint, save animals and get healthy. You can also buy a hard or soft copy of our favorite vegan cookbooks.
• Reduce Your Fast Fashion Footprint: Take initiative by standing up against fast fashion Pollution and supporting sustainable and circular brands like Tiny Rescue that raise awareness around important issues through recycled zero-waste clothing designed to be returned and remade repeatedly.
• Support Independent Media: Being publicly funded gives us a greater chance to continue providing you with high-quality content. Please consider supporting us by donating!
• Sign a Petition: Your voice matters! Help turn petitions into victories by signing the latest list of must-sign petitions to help people, animals, and the planet.
• Stay Informed: Keep up with the latest news and important stories involving animals, the environment, sustainable living, food, health, and human interest topics by subscribing to our newsletter!
• Do What You Can: Reduce waste, plant trees, eat local, travel responsibly, reuse stuff, say no to single-use plastics, recycle, vote smart, switch to cold water laundry, divest from fossil fuels, save water, shop wisely, Donate if you can, grow your food, volunteer, conserve energy, compost, and don’t forget about the microplastics and microbeads lurking in common household and personal care products!