HOME GROWN GRANNY PICKLES

For some reason, cucumbers have always seemed impossible for me to grow in my garden.  Many times over the years I have planted, cultivated, added compost, watered and nurtured to no avail.  They always grew nice vines, put on lovely blooms and even tiny cucumbers before withering away.  This year, I planted a few seeds in a newly cleared area of the garden which had only had a little compost tilled in, and promptly ignored them in favor of other vegetables.

Much to my surprise, this year I have cucumbers.  Not an over abundance of cucumbers since I only planted a few, but enough to make a few pickles.  In my mind, cucumbers equals pickles and pickles equals Granny Pickles.

Granny pickles are the kind my grandmother (dad's mom) made an abundance of every year.  They had to ferment and got better with age.  We never tasted the new batch because the older ones were to be eaten first, and they were the most sour, salty, pucker your eyeballs delicious pickles on earth.  No others could compare.  Over the years, others have used her recipe but it has never been the same.

Now it is my turn! Most days for about the past month there have been enough cucumbers to pack nicely into a quart jar, some days more, some days less and some days none.  I now have almost 30 quarts of pickles in the jar.  My lack of patience being what it is, there is a difficulty with keeping the lid on that first jar, but I have resolved not to test them at least until after the first frost.

As you can see from this small sampling, they don't look too bad.  You may notice that the two quarts on the right (which are among the most recent) are cloudy, but this is a part of the process and disappears later.  The two quarts on the left are the first of the season and the larger and smaller jars are somewhere in between.

This recipe originally came from a pickling company where one of my grandfather's family members worked (we believe, in Minnesota), where they made the pickles which were kept in barrels in the old general stores of the time.  It is a very simple recipe and easily adapts to small or large batches.

RECIPE:  for the brine

3 quarts cold water

1 pint vinegar

1 cup salt

Note:  Though the recipe I have does not specify, I use natural apple cider vinegar and kosher salt (though I believe granny used regular canning salt)

INSTRUCTIONS: 

soak fresh picked cucumbers in cold water overnight

sterilize jars and lids

pack cucumbers tightly in jars

add a sprig or two of dill

add two or three cloves of garlic (for kosher dills)

fill with cold brine

put lid on tight

Another Note:  Put the jars in a cool place, on a surface that will not be harmed by pickle juice.  They will spew a little in the fermenting process.

Now the waiting begins!  If they turn out like the ones Granny made, it will be more than worth the wait.  As always, thank you and I look forward to your questions and comments.