Of course it does. It's obvious really! As you know the cucumbers in my greenhouse have been growing well, with three appearing the moment we turned our backs and went away for the weekend at the end of July.

And they just keep on coming...

My current cucumber stash

It's no bad thing but with the weather turning cooler (ok colder and wetter) I'm not sure how many more salads we have in us, so I needed to find another way to use them.

Our cucumbers are pricklier than the ones you buy, but also taste way better, are crispier and aren't quite as uniform in shape! We've been eating them in salads and dipping them into houmous for a while now but we still aren't really making much of a dent in our stash.

After some Googling I decided cocktails were the way forward. MOH and I are quite partial to a cocktail (or two, or more!) and as we had vodka, triple sec and could rustle up some ice and lime juice this Martha Stewart recipe seemed ideal.

Plus my mint in the garden needed cutting down, so it was just meant to be...

Two of the cucumbers quickly became this:

And into the blender they went before being sieved.

The resulting cucumber juice was a lovely pale green. With my part complete it was over to MOH to mix the cocktails.

To a cup of mint, some ice, three tablespoons of lime juice and two teaspoons of sugar he added half a cup of vodka, two tablespoons of triple sec (we substituted this for Cointreau) and three-quarters of a cup of the pale green juice.

A quick taste and for us it needed a touch more sugar, with that adjusted (and a splash more vodka for good measure) it was into two chilled glasses and garnished with a sliver of cucumber.

So there we were on a rain soaked Bank Holiday Monday with some beautiful cocktails! Not quite the weather these cocktails deserved but a refreshing, if not slightly "alchofrolic" way to deal with our cucumber glut. It's definitely a good thing to try!

Shaken, not stirred...

That leaves one more cucumber in the fridge which is destined for juicing (of the non-alcoholic sort this time), and at least a couple more still growing. I think I'll pickle them (rather than pickling ourselves!) as I can pick them while they're still relatively small.

Back to Google it is then for a different sort of pickling recipe.

If you have any tried and tested cucumber pickling recipes It'd be great if you could share them please.