Gardening Thread- Show me your gardens!

Nice. That's a lot of work lol.

 

Yeah...
Started after work on Friday, around 18:00. Wrapped up around 1:00 Saturday Morning.
So Friday was a long day; I generally wake up at 4:30 or so, and start my work day at 7:00

 

whats your pickle recipe? i see its not processed/water bath.

 

They're water bath canned; those pickles are shelf-stable.

For the Dills it's pretty basic; cukes plus a general 'Ball canning' brine, garlic, & dill. Processed for 10 minutes (pints) or 15 minutes (quarts)

Brine recipe is:
3 3/4 cups vinegar (I use cider, but white works too)
3 3/4 cups water
1/3 cup pickling salt
Pickling spices in a cheesecloth bag

I cold pack the cukes, put 3-4 pieces of garlic and a good-sized dill head in with them, and add the brine right before they go in the canner.

The bread & butter is more complicated; it involves cutting up around 10 cups of cukes and 2-3 large onions, salting them with 1/2 cup of salt and letting them sit for about 2 hours, then rinsing them off. Pack them in jars and add the brine. The brine for the B&B pickles is 3 cups of vinegar, 2 cups of sugar, 2 TBSP mustard seed, 1 tsp celery seed, and 1 tsp turmeric.

Then the process is the same; 10 minutes in the canner for pints, 15 for quarts, but I usually only do pints. I don't eat that many B&B pickles.

 

are they mushy or do they still have some crunch?

 

Still plenty of crunch. More so if you refrigerate them before you eat them, but even right off the shelf they're still pretty crispy for up to a year, if they last that long.
You can add some calcium chloride or use the old pickling lime technique, if you like a REALLY crunchy pickle, but I've never felt the need because these always have plenty of snap.

Edit- Plus, pickling lime is a pain to work with, and I don't have that sort of patience, lol.

 

I've never had so many hbirds. They're keeping me busy filling the feeder and some awesome air battles



Fresh spearmint in my Oolong tea

 

I have enough cukes for one jar Fucking weather

 

I have about ten pounds of tomatoes I would like to can in next day or so

 

I picked some rogue blackberries by the road yesterday, my wife made 5 pints of blackberry jam. Its by far one of the better jams shes made! I went and picked another batch from a nearby abandoned/foreclosed property. they will just go to waste or some other chump will get them so Im jumping in on the blackberry action!

 

Those look like jalapenos

 

Pickles, i add 1/8 tsp of pickle crisp to each jar. Wife says they are real crisp after refrigeration.

 

Lots of jalapeños coming this week. Wife made pepper relish with this batch.

 

I've never actually tried pickle crisp; mine have some good snap without it, but I know that a lot of people use it. From what I understand it's less hassle than the old pickling lime method.

 

Couldn’t be easier, 1/8 tsp to each jar, lid on, process.

 

Interesting. I'll have to keep it in mind if I'm ever working with a recipe that calls for a longer processing time.

 

Outstanding move!

 

My ghost peppers got off to a really slow start I think a lot had to do with my watering process but I let them dry out a lot more frequently and they just bounce back fantastic. I canned 2 quarts of tomatoes, 1 quart Boxcar Willie and quart celebrity.
I have an additional dozen or so big tomatoes Bonnie centennial that I will car and hopefully I will get 2 quarts half of that.
On another plant a San Marzano I have about a dozen tomatoes ready to can when they ripen more, that will probably get me one
quart. I just picked all of these. I didn’t do too bad on the beans as they have struggled a little this year. But as you see in the strainer that are all grape tomatoes off of one plant


I think next year I won’t start my zucchini so soon and my beans and that I would just
Start my tomatoes in the middle of March I think that will do me OK.

 

I am improving really well ( by my mistake and error method) and next year I can’t wait for already