Yesterday we picked all the cucumbers we could find on our four plants, and brought them up to the house to wash and then put into a large bowl with cold water, and then into the pantry. Today was pickle day, but first we had to go play in the garden. While Dan was watering plants, I was walking around talking to them and taking pictures. A good division of labor!
The hills are finally brown in the distance. This is the dry time of year, where we are just waiting for the fall rains to come.
Amazingly enough, our corn plants have set two ears of corn, with tassels and everything! Whether or not they get large enough to eat remains to be seen. But they exist and that's amazing.
Deep in the center of the cauliflower plant is a cauliflower head a couple of inches in diameter. We only planted the one cauliflower plant, not knowing if it would grow here. A successful experiment.
Deep in the tomato jungle we created lurk tomatoes. They are starting to turn a sort of pale greenish yellow, a good sign they are heading towards red. Now we just have to escape a killing frost for just a while longer.
The two surviving grape plants are growing well on the back of the grape arbor, not tall enough quite yet, but nobody has munched them, and they look quite happy.
A spaghetti squash is growing larger each time we look at it. We keep moving it back into the raised bed, and it keeps push out towards the edge. A very slow motion escape is in process.
On the side of one of the raised beds, in between the boards, wild pansies are blooming. Very cute, small flowers clinging to the vertical wall.
Tiny (still!) onions next to the Kale plant that is trying to take over the world, but the Swiss Chard is holding its own, so far.
I just love the color of the Clematis, so I'm including a picture of it. This one is growing on the inside of the grape arbor.
Roses are still blooming. Next year we'll need to start tying them up so they can begin climbing.
The freshly opened flowers are a vibrant orange-red color, fading to pale as the flower ages.
Fragrant, it will be so nice to be able to smell them without sitting on the ground. Grow, little roses, grow!
This deep burgundy colored rose is the tallest of the four plants. It can already reach the lattice. Lots of buds on this plant.
Lunch-to-be. Swiss Chard, a zucchini, a cherry tomato (it will join others picked a couple of days ago), and a Garden Salsa pepper. Fritatta! The Garden Salsa pepper was a lot hotter than we thought it would be, but had a really nice flavor.
We also picked another cucumber that got missed yesterday. Are we going to have any pickles on our pickle saga?
Peeled garlic cloves, dill seeds - alas no fresh dill because we forgot to plant any, and hot pepper flakes because we didn't plant any of those pepper plants either.
Various sizes of cucumbers, the idea will be to slice them so they are similar sizes. These were soaking in cold water overnight, waiting for today.
The water/vinegar/salt brine is starting to get hot; the small pan in the back was cooking jar lids, and the large canning kettle was boiling quart jars.
See? Washed jars in very hot boiling water. We ended up with five jars in the water after we had the cucumbers sliced. Since we have never done this before, it was all a learning experience and a lot of guessing on quantities was involved.
Once the jars were cooked and the brine was boiling, it was time to slice the cucumbers and assemble the jars. Then the filled jars go back into the boiling water bath for 15 minutes.
We put one or two cloves of garlic in the bottom of a hot jar just removed from the kettle, added one teaspoon of red pepper flakes, one tablespoon of dill seeds, and then stuffed as many cucumber slices in the jar as would hold. Next, fill the jar with boiling hot brine, put a lid and ring on the jar, and pop it back into the boiling water.
Fifteen minutes later….
Five quart jars of pickles cooling on the kitchen cabinet. It will be 3 to 6 weeks before they are ready to be eaten.
Waiting for the jars lids to make this ‘pink’ sound as they seal is always the hardest part. And these are big jars so it will take longer than my little jam jars take.