Just One Jar

My goal this year has been to grow as many ingredients as I could to make my own pickles. It started in the fall when we planted garlic. Dill and dill seeds are easy to grow though this year I didn't use my own. Making vinegar is easy but always use 5% acidity store bought vinegar for safety reasons. And now the cucumbers are starting to come in. I had about 6 small cukes, enough for one pint... did I have to eat all the cukes and wait for a larger bunch to come in at one time???

My brine recipe calls for 6 cups of vinegar, 8 cups of water and 1/2 cup salt (I always use Kosher). I also toss in dill and mustard seed. This recipe makes 7 to 9 pints. Since I only needed enough brine for 1 pint I broke it down.

4 pints
3c vinegar
4c water
1/4c salt

2 pints
1 1/2c vinegar
2c water
1/8c salt

I'm using any extra brine to make refrigerator pickles later!

Making pickles is so easy so don't be afraid to try it yourself. This is where I found my favorite pickle making instructions: http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/foodnut/09304.html

Vegetable Flower

That came from this!

Don't worry we ate the others.

Some Cats...

William

 Some cats like nuzzling wool.

baby artichoke

baby corn

baby yellow squash

3 sister bed of corn, squash and beans

Simon

Some cats like hanging out in the garden.

When Will It End

Another resin gift has arrived, my favorite... why? This time it was my daughters doing, they all think they're so funny.

Let's focus on the vegetables instead. I've never grown egg plant before.

I love peppers, even the kids will eat them now, yippee!

A present to myself, an artichoke.

This is our 3 sister bed corn, beans and squash. Don't forget the fish emulsion!

Lookin pretty good even with a heat wave.

My Work is Done

Seems that while I was out today Gil took some nice shots of the greenhouse. You realize it's February, right?

On the bottom left we still have swiss chard I've been picking from, above that spinach, above that turnips. In the middle are the carrots that aren't in a rush to do anything and on the right are oak leaf and romaine lettuces.

He's picked some carrots, we found out that the tops are good to eat too.

I liked this shot of him as a shadow taking a picture of his skateboard. Not weird under the circumstances, he turned a regular deck into a long board. You'd have to know about skateboards.

Gil's Greenhouse

We decided not to roll the door edges and just screw the wood strips to the frame, over the plastic.

Then Gil cut the plastic around the door.

We're going to put plastic on the door with Velcro so we can adjust for ventilation. 

We started tomatoes, bok choy and swiss chard several weeks ago. We got that in and planted carrot, parsnip, turnip, spinach and lettuce seeds. Sounds like a lot, right! We figured that we were going into winter, things wouldn't get that big and who knows what will actually grow. We'll thin as necessary.

This is our worm mascot!

Last of the Garden

I'm coming to the end of my vegetable garden, except for some kale and garlic in the fall. Zucchini was a huge disappointment this year. They seem very sensitive about water! I didn't work on crafts today I had lots of running around to do. We have a birthday week next week. I baked, what should be an incredible cake. I only made 2 of the layers but here's the link. Unbelievable!!!

http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2010/08/cherpumple_-_pies_baked_inside.html

It's a video, so funny but very edible.

I'll take a picture when we're done.

Garden Digging

It's been a while since I've been out digging in the garden. The summer's been to hot to do more than pick stuff and run inside. It's still hot but it needed to get done! I had a space where the onions had been and some spuds that needed to come out, fingerlings.

I need to get kale in the ground and more beets!!!

Baby Squash Saying...

Gosh, not quite sure what it's saying there?

Baby Squash Saying Hello

I couldn't resist a next day shot.

Baby Squash

What a little sweetie!

Proto Pickles

I've been making my own dill pickles for the past 2 years, very yummy. I would buy the pickle cukes at a local produce store but this year I wanted to try growing them myself. Thank goodness they come in bush varieties. What you see here so far is growing on a foot and a half of plant.

The proto pickles are so sweet.

Does anyone have a secret sure fire way of keeping cats out of the garden???