The Sun is Killing Me: Pickles!

Monday, October 8, 2012

Pickles!

What to do with many pounds of stupidly large cucumbers? And piles of jalapenos? Pickle them!

Here's the cucumbers being prepped for pickling. Many of these were a good foot long and the seeds were too large to eat. I decided to scoop the insides out and slice them up to fit in the jars:

I found this recipe and went with it. It made 14 pints and they came out great! Aren't they pretty?:

Next were the jalapenos. The jalapeno plant had so many peppers on it that it actually collapsed from the weight. I had to do something with all the peppers:

They were pickled as well. I used this pickled jalapenos recipe. It was really easy and they also came out just wonderful. One jalapeno plant yielded 8 pints of pickled peppers (not counting the piles of them I already ate).:

All together now:

2 comments:

Rock rose said...: That is one heck of a lot of pickles! You will be able to think of the success you had with these crops every time you take a bite.; October 8, 2012 at 2:19 PM
Lee17 said...: It is a lot of pickles. And I didn't even get all the cucumbers pickled up. I had so many they were coming out my ears!; October 14, 2012 at 2:41 PM

Zone What?

Seattle to Olympia is Gardening Hardiness Zone 8.

Zone 8: -12 to -7 C (10 to 20 F)

Austin is Gardening Hardiness Zone 8-9

Zone 8: -12 to -7 C (10 to 20 F)
Zone 9: -7 to -1 C (20 to 30 F)

The USDA map was updated this year - 2012. Some zones have shifted from the previous version.

See the current map here:

http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/ushzmap.html

Although both Austin and Seattle are in similiar zone hardiness, their climates could not be more different! Temps top out in the 80's in the summer in Seattle, where in Austin they can top 110 and stay in the 100's for months on end. The same plants that enjoy the Seattle maritime climate will fry in a second in the semi-desert that is Central Texas.

Learn about the heat zone map here:

http://www.ahs.org/publications/heat_zone_map.htm

Check out the AHS Heat Zone map here:

http://www.ahs.org/pdfs/05_heat_map.pdf

Past Garden Quotes of the Month

"The fair-weather gardener, who will do nothing except when the wind and weather and everything else are favorable, is never master of his craft."-- Henry Ellacombe
"The trouble with gardening is that it does not remain an avocation. It becomes an obsession." -- Phyllis McGinley
"The way of cultivation is not easy. He who plants a garden plants happiness." --Chinese Proverb
"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in." --Greek proverb
'Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.' - Albert Einstein
"Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden." ~Orson Scott Card
"I never had any other desire so strong, and so like to covetousness, as that one which I have had always, that I might be master at last of a small house and a large Garden." ~Abraham Cowley, The Garden, 1666
"A weed is but an unloved flower." ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox
"Last night, there came a frost, which has done great damage to my garden.... It is sad that Nature will play such tricks on us poor mortals, inviting us with sunny smiles to confide in her, and then, when we are entirely within her power, striking us to the heart." ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The American Notebookse
"Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of the imagination." ~Mrs. C.W. Earle, Pot-Pourri from a Surrey Garden, 1897 (Thanks, Jessica)
"When one of my plants dies, I die a little inside, too." ~Linda Solegato
"In gardens, beauty is a by-product. The main business is sex and death." ~Sam Llewelyn
"Plant carrots in January and you'll never have to eat carrots." ~Author Unknown