Two years ago I wrote about a cucumber glut and a fresh pickle recipe. Last year, our cucumbers didn’t do so well, and I didn’t plant nearly as many. The 2010 garden was planted with three varieties of cucumbers but in what I thought were realistic, appropriate quantities – two hills a piece with about 3 plants per hill.

two cucumber hills climbing tomato cages

It turns out 18 cucumber plants is way too many. In my defense, I was still rebounding from last year’s poor garden-cucumber relationship. I know, it’s unhealthy.

3 varieties: Lemon, Suhyo tk, Homemade Pickles

That unhealthy relationship has led to some nice cucumber salads, several trips to local food banks (they welcome fresh produce donations), and the realization that canning pickles isn’t so hard.

Step 1: Collect and wash cucumbers

Only one of our varieties is actually a pickling kind – I’m sure the others would likely do fine, but they wouldn’t look like pickles. Aesthetics are important.

Step 2: Slice cucumbers into halves or spears

I found some fresh-pack dill pickling canning recipes. Fresh-packing means there is no soaking or cooking of the cucumber for days/weeks, but it does still call for several ingredients. I was at the store purchasing quart jars when I noticed some packaged mixes. Much simpler than purchasing all the ingredients separately. Perhaps I have sacrificed on overall pickling potential, but I wasn’t really setting out to win any awards. I just wanted to can some pickles.

Steps 3-8: Follow instructions on pickling mix package

I’ve used two different pickling mixes now: Mrs. Wages and Ball, both Kosher Dill mixes. They appear about the same, but Mrs. Wages is a slightly larger package making an additional quart jar. That’s good if you have many cucumbers, but not good if you have a small stove that requires a smaller hot-water canner.

Please note that I refrained from using the following puns and word-plays when writing this posting:

• In a bit of a pickle
• That ain’t kosher
• Dill-iberate
• Dill-ectable
• Canning what you can can
• Had a ball
• Indistinguisha-ball

It’s no wonder that Jack’s magic seeds were beans. The way the vines twist and grow and climb lend themselves to fantasy and imagination. And they produce beaucoup amounts of beans too. Something I am not sure Jack was ever too aware of. Or perhaps his grew so fast and then he had to chop down the stalk so soon after planting that he was never able to harvest anything.

I like to think the beans of the Jack’s plant would also be magical. Maybe a few seeds have survived and have been past down through the generations. And maybe one day I will trade those seeds for a cow. I’ll need a cow first.

We’ve been eating better these days. The garden has been helping. And while we have pulled the occasional items here and there, this was the first full meal of a wide variety of fresh veggies. The chiogga beet (white and red stripes behind the cucumber) is a very sweet variety and it doesn’t bleed all over the plate when stabbed with a fork – which, as we all know, is one of the worst things about beets. The garden is about ready to explode with produce. It’s exciting, but in some ways I wish it would just stay at about this pace.

We needed an additional little chest freezer to store more veggies from the garden. If only we could freeze cucumber. The new freezer is not pictured below. In order to move the new freezer in, we needed to first move the old bathtub out. And what better place for the bathtub than on the front porch?!

We also needed to finish cutting and cementing in the old waste lines that were in the bathroom. For that we needed cement. But since we were going to mix cement, we should fill in that sketchy basement window at the same time (it’s on our list – see previous post). So Anne went out and bought more cement. Meanwhile, I dug potatoes and pulled onions and turnips and more cucumbers, beans and tomatoes. The garden is getting cleaned up. I’m not at all sure what any of this has to do with the tub on the porch, but that seemed to start everything rolling this weekend.

Anne is tempted to make a little garden pond out of the old tub. It might happen.

I never managed to create the obelisk for growing beans this year. Instead, I planted beans and cucumbers in various places around the garden near to climbing structures. The first spot was next to the shed, just behind the hollyhocks. It faces east, so it doesn’t get quite as much sun as the rest of the garden, so it’s been progressing a little slower. It’s looking great now. The cucumber (larger leaves in the middle) is especially strong here.

The pea plastic mesh fencing is also holding a collection of beans and cucumbers. These cucumbers were some of the first and have just begun swelling up all over the place. We cut into the first one two days ago and it was good. I think it might have been a bit over-ripe, but still really good and fresh. 

Some of my favorite, although a bit crowded, are the beans climbing the tomato cages. It’s tricky to spot the beans in all the greenery, so it makes it extra special when I see one – or several.

I was tempted to make a slideshow, but slides get dull after a while. Then I thought I could make a little movie with some narration, but I couldn’t think of anything incredibly clever and fun to say. So I made a little game of it. There are 34 closeup images in the garden. Click on the garden to find and see them. I put a little counter in the bottom right corner so you don’t need to keep track. These images were all taken on June 14th. (If it seems nothing appears below, just click in the space).

[swf]http://www.www.barkandbloom.com/flash/interactiveGarden/interactiveGarden.swf, 400,300[/swf]