Pickling Made Easy

Pickled Sweet Hots Recipe

You should have know I would post the recipe – RIGHT? Click on the image above for the Sweet Hot Pickling recipe I have been using as long as I have been canning. Don’t let the tightly packed jars fool you into thinking this is a hard recipe. If you have any interest in canning your own food and saving a little money on the side you can do this. Click on the Image above for the EASY Sweet Hot recipe.

From my Kitchen Canning Supply Storage

A view of my kitchen on canning day.

In the image above is a look at my kitchen counter on canning day. I’m fortunate enough to have a food processor that I use for most of the slicing in my canning adventures. If you are not doing a large scale of canning then it would be silly to get out a tool like the food processor because it adds more time to the clean up project when using that tool.

Easy to grow and Make Dill Pickle Recipe

Here is where the Picklin’ Begins :

It all started in my greenhouse with a few little seeds that I received from the Toledo Growers Seed Swap. This year I have saved my own seeds from the harvest to continue the growing next season.

Seeds Starts in my Greenhouse

My friend Jan over at City Farmer did the math for me. Jan wrote on her Facebook Network:
City Farmer These numbers are as crunchy as the pickles! Bren of BGgarden canned 72 pints of pickles this week from 6 plants. So that’s a case of pickles per plant, or 1 pint/month for the coming year. Eat 2 pints of pickles/month? Then you’ll need 2 plants, and so on. One cuke plant is totally do-able on a balcony or patio. Two or …more, great for a city farm or community garden! Our pickle math is done.
July 29 at 9:20pm / at Facebook / CITY FARMER

These are the 4 plants in the Veggie Garden.

In the photo above are my four plants I have growing on homemade trellis’ in the veggie garden. My veggie garden is pretty ‘darn’ big but the cucumbers take up a space measuring 4′x4′. You don’t need fancy store bought trellis’ for your cucumbers to stay compact. We use 3 pieces of left over wood stakes, drilled a hole at the top with a ‘twist tie’ to hold the T-P together. I use garden twin tying the strong up and gentle placing the cucumber vine as it grows. I have been using these for five years now.

Cucumbers in Raised Bed Project

The photo above shows my two pickling cucumber plants that are over in my Greenhouse Landscape project featured in the raised beds. There are lot of fun annuals and herbs growing in this box as well. The funny thing is, I have harvested more cucumbers from this location then the four in the veggie garden. This bed is fed with Haven Brew Bags.

I hope I have encouraged you to try canning up some of your own Pickles this year or at least keep it on the list of must dos in the garden soon. Happy Growing your own – Bren