I mentioned before that I love pickles. Because of this I bought pickling cucumber seeds this year so I could make my own pickles. I had one pickling cucumber ripen last week and I put it in a salad. Not such a good idea. It was really unpleasantly bitter on its own. I learned my lesson on that one. This week I had five or six pickling cucumbers ripen, so I made a small batch of pickles.
I'm new to pickling and am learning that you can pickle just about anything and there are lots of different ways to make pickles, from easy refrigerator pickles, to one-day and two-day pickles, to pickles that have to sit in the corner of your kitchen for three weeks before you do anything with them. Since I only had a small batch of cucumbers right now I went with the easy, breezy refrigerator dill pickles. These aren't canned and preserved, so they have to be eaten within a few months. When all three of my cucumber plants start producing (right now only one is producing fruit) then I will make a bigger batch of preserved pickles.
First, I sliced my cukes and set them aside in a bowl.
I made the pickling brine with some vinegar, pickling salt, sugar and pickling spice and boiled it about ten minutes. Then poured the brine over the pickle slices and let it sit and cool for about a half hour.
Inside the jars I put some peppercorns, mustard seed, garlic cloves and dill. Then added the slices and covered with brine. Pickles, done!
Well, mostly done. They are fermenting in the fridge and will be tasty and edible in about two weeks.
The harvest is changing. We've been eating broccoli, peas and lettuce for what seems like a long time now. But the broccoli is finishing up, I've officially stopped watering the peas because they are dead to me (and mostly dead), and the bulk of the lettuce has bolted and been removed*. I have some more lettuce that is about in it's adolescent stage and ready to start eating too though.
Now, the beans are maturing.
I have cucumbers! I went with pickling cucumbers this year because I love pickles. I am assuming I can eat them as a cucumber too though....although I haven't looked into this yet.
The plums are ripening with fervor. I'm dedicating Thursday morning to make plum preserves.
Harvested today:
*As a side note, the lettuce variety I used was “Salad Bowl Organic”. It's a looseleaf that grew like a weed! It got gigantic and I couldn't come close to eating everything it produced. I just pulled out the bit that was bolting this morning, which was taking up the last four feet of one of the beds. I was shocked to find it was actually only three plants that were taking up all that space. But I did notice that even after it started to bolt, it didn't bitter. Just a note for all you gardeners out there.
