Make your own pickles without a store bought seasoning mix

Home made pickles

Saturday, August 31, 2019

Summer is prime cucumber season!  Cucumbers love heat.  If you have more than you can or want to eat fresh, there is always homemade pickles.  Homemade pickles are sooooooo easy!  My husband loves those “Stacker” type pickles, the big slices you lay across the bun for a juicy hamburger.

I enjoy making pickles.  I slice up my extra cucumbers to just the length and width my husband likes them for his burgers and use my homemade pickling herbs and spices with organic apple cider vinegar.  The trick is to make sure you do not put less salt or vinegar in them.  Salt and vinegar are preservatives.  They keep the dilly solution acidic enough so your pickles do not spoil.

You can make either picklers or slicers cucumbers into pickles.  Picklers have been bred to be smaller and have smaller seeds, but both have the same fresh cucumber taste.  Don’t let the cucumber get too big, this results in big seeds and slows down cucumber production.

I can a jar at a time.  You want your cucumbers fresh for preserving.  I harvest the cucumbers before they get too large.  This does two things, it keeps the size of the seeds in the cucumber down and it keeps the vine producing.  All vegetables are in the business of insuring survival so they give everything they have to producing their seed, the vegetables we harvest.  If you keep removing their seeds, they keep trying to make more!

I typically can 2-3 cucumbers at a time.  These will fit nicely into a quart canning jar.  Make sure the jar and lid have been sterilized.  I slice them lengthwise to the size that will fit on a bun; make sure you remove the ends of the cucumber as some ends are bitter.  I add 2-3 flowering dill heads, 4-5 sprigs of salad burnet or tarragon, 2 cloves, 4-5 garlic cloves, 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar, 1/4 teas of caraway seeds, 1/4 teas of peppercorns, one cardamon seed pod, 3 tablespoons of salt, a bay leave, fill the rest of the jar with water (about 2 cups is all that is needed).  If you like 'em spicy, throw in a pepper or two with stem removed.  Slice the pepper in half to get the spicy from the seeds.  

Sliced cucumber with herbs from the garden for seasoning

You can get a good jar seal by heating the water and seasonings on the stove to a boil, let cool, add the vinegar, then pour over the sliced cucumbers in the jar, and put the lid on.  Or you can do it the old fashioned way and not heat the liquid, letting the pickles naturally ferment.  It is critical that you have at least the amount of salt and vinegar recommended or the pickles will go bad.  I shake the jar a couple of times a day until the salt is completely dissolved. You let them ferment at room temperature in a cool, dark place 1-4 weeks and they are ready to eat!

For more on fermentation for food preservation, a good book is "Wild Fermentation" by Sandor Ellix Katz.

Some swear that adding a grape leaf will keep the pickles crisp.  I don’t have a grapevine so have not been able to confirm this tip, but will certainly remember for when we do.

Unopened pickle jars will keep for a year or longer.  Once opened, keep refrigerated and eat within a couple of months.

Cucumber ready to harvest

To keep your cucumbers in peak production, harvest when the cukes are 6-7 inches in length.  I use scissors to cut the cuke from the vine.  If you are not going to use them immediately, store in a freezer bag in the crisper.  You can perk up the cuke by soaking in cool water.

Cucumbers love heat, organic matter and moisture.  They are easiest to harvest when given a trellis to climb.  Keep the fruits harvested for best production.  I use a liquid fertilizer like fish emulsion or bat guano and seaweed to add other needed nutrients.  Monthly side dressings of compost works well, too.  For minerals, I also use a “Growers Mineral Solution” to get the minerals plants need.  This also means the fruits you eat will be rich in minerals.  Your plants are what you feed them.  
Cucumber info and tips for growing

Do not let the plant get dry.  This is what causes bitter fruits.  When I grow cucumbers in pots or in the ground, I use mulch to help retain moisture for the plant.  If growing in a pot, you may need to water daily during heat waves or use a self watering pot with a built in water reservoir.

Summer garden tips

September 2019 Edible Garden Planner

Winter squash from the September garden

Thursday, August 29, 2019

End of summer is a great time to tidy garden beds and harvest herbs.  As the days get shorter, growth slows and before long the sun cannot support all the greenery from summer.  Peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, and cucumbers will keep producing through frost.  Keep the fruits picked to keep them producing.  Beginning of September is time to sow seeds of cool weather lovers for fall and early winter harvests.  

Harvesting Herbs

This is the perfect time to harvest your herbs.  You can cut them back so they remain lush, improving the tidiness of your garden, and providing herbs for the winter ahead.  Cutting them back will help the plants build stronger root systems.  Trimming does encourage new growth as well.  You just don't want to prune too close to frost as new growth makes the plant less hardy.

Harvesting and drying herbs

I dry my herbs to preserve them.  I put loosely in a paper bag in a dry, warm area out of the sun and let dry naturally.  Loose is the key here so they get good air circulation and do not mold.  They should be completely dry in about 3-4 weeks.  I like putting them in clothes closets to dry as they release such great fragrance and the darkness helps keep the flavor in the herb.

Once dried, remove the leaves from woody herbs and store in an airtight container out of direct sunlight.  With a soft herb like chives, you can just crumble into the airtight container.  I use wide mouth canning jars for herb storage or freezer bags kept in a dark location.

For more ideas on herbs, Use herbs for signature desserts and grown up beverages, Quick tip on fresh flavor herb preservation and herbal butters, Homemade salad dressing recipes with garden herbs, and Make your own teas from garden grown herbs

If the winter is not a bad one, most perennial herbs like chives, oregano, sage, savory, and thyme can be harvested year round straight from the garden.

Fall planting guide for cool season crops

In September, plant more greens, carrots, and radishes.  October is the month to plant garlic for next year's harvest. Time to plant garlic! With growing tips......  Buy your garlic early because the most popular varieties sell out early.  I will plant the best cloves from this year's harvest.  I have both regular garlic and elephant garlic to plant.  I like elephant garlic because it produces such huge cloves.

You can pick up transplants like broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, kale, as well as herbs at some nurseries since gardening has become so popular, buy them on line or grow from seed.  Everything that loves spring also thrive in fall into early winter.  Lettuce is a favorite for fall.  Plant a variety daily the first two weeks of September.

Plant lettuce seed now for fall and winter harvest...

Broccoli and cauliflower growing tips

Everything you need to know about growing lettuce

Collards and kale in your garden

Midwest Perennial Vegetable Garden

For more on fall planting, Time to set out transplants for fall, winter, & spring harvests

Caring for your new seeds and transplants

Like in the spring, newly sown seeds need moisture to sprout.  Keep seeds and transplants moist until they get their first real set of leaves and are well established.  Then water as needed.

Many crops you can harvest into December and beyond, depending on how cold fall is.  Some get sweeter with some frost, like carrots, chard, and lettuce.  With cover, you can harvest all the way through winter!

Transplants for winter and overwintering

What’s growing in the late February garden

Homegrown, organic salads in a Midwest winter

You can garden year round in small space

Prepare for hard freeze

A quick reminder, save the seeds from your best performers to plant next year!  You can replant seeds from any heirlooms or open pollinated plants.  Not only does it save you money, but it also gives you the plants that do the best under your garden and zone conditions.  Seed saving-fun, easy and a cost saver

Preserving peppers

Potted pepper plant

Sunday, August 18, 2019

For preserving the pepper harvest, you have some options-drying, freezing, pickling. I have also seen creative pepper jelly and preserve recipes for canning.  They sound really fun.  I may have to try a couple of them this fall.  Canning is much nicer to do when it has cooled off.  Peppers keep producing until a hard frost so there is lots of time left to experiment with preservation options!

Peppers love summer warmth.  Surprisingly, when it gets too hot (in the 90’s) they can start to drop flowers and get sunburned.  So, don’t be surprised when they are not as perky as earlier in the season.  They will come back when the temperatures get out of the stratosphere.  During extreme heat waves, they appreciate some shade.

Sweet pepper plant in the garden

If you have your peppers in pots, you can just roll them into a spot that gives some relief.  If they are in the ground, you can use a shade cloth, or a piece of picket fence or screen on the south or west side of the plant.  Or just wait for nature to take its course.

I have tried peppers in the ground and in pots.  They seem to do the best in a pot.  All the hot peppers I have ever tried are much more prolific than any sweet pepper I had tried.  I kept trying new types of sweet peppers, looking for a type that loves my garden conditions.  I finally found one.  I grew out some plants from the seed of a hybrid sweet yellow banana pepper.  I got yellow, orange and maroon sweet peppers from the seed that do great in my garden.  I now save the seed to re-grow in the garden.  

The small hot pepper that I overwinter is doing well called Chiltepin.  It is the oldest form of capsicum annum species and is very hot.  These tiny hot peppers, I just put on the counter to dry.    When completely dry, I will put in a jar.  I use these peppers in the grilling mix I make. 

Using herbs, flowers and fruit for flavored sugars and salts

I gave a boost to all our garden plants with Espoma Gardentone and Azomite last week end (for a make your own boost I have also used bat guano, feather meal, and kelp meal).  Potted plants should be fertilized a couple of times a month and garden bed veggies, once a month.  

Summer garden tips

Ancho/poblano pepper

Peppers dry easily.  The quickest way is to put in a dehydrator.  Just slice in half and pop in.  If you don’t have a dehydrator, you can use your oven on its lowest setting.  This year, I have just been leaving them on the window sill and they appear to be drying just fine.  You can also put on a screen in the sun or hang in a dry place.  The watchout for drying outside is the level of humidity.  In high moisture, they may spoil versus dry.

Dehydrate or sun dry your extra veggies

I am growing Ancho peppers for chili pepper.  My hubby loves lots of chili pepper in his chili.  I have been harvesting them for about a month now.

The bigger hot peppers I freeze whole to use in salsa throughout the winter and spring.  Quick, homemade salsa  I chop and freeze the pimentos to use in salad.  It is a key ingredient in the salad we love from the Pasta House restaurant.  For the recipe, see  Homemade salad dressing recipes with garden herbs   Typically, any food gets soft when thawed.  The Pimentos I have chopped and frozen retain their firmness even after thawing.

Freezing the extras for winter

I also make hot sauce from the hot peppers.  It is super easy by slicing and placing in apple cider vinegar.  I typically use Cayenne peppers for hot sauce but any hot pepper that you like will do just fine.

Quick tip-make your own hot sauce

If you have a pepper plant that did great this year, there are a couple ways to make sure you have them in your garden next season.  You can save seeds from your favorite peppers for next year's garden.  Just dry the seeds and put them in a freezer bag in the frig.  Be sure to save the seeds from the best fruits.  Seed saving-fun, easy and a cost saver  

Peppers are perennials that you can bring in to the house or garage to overwinter.  It gives them a jump on next season.  This has worked well for my hot peppers and not so well for the sweet peppers I have tried to overwinter in the garage.

For more tips on growing peppers, Peppers are for every taste and garden.

What to plant in the edible August garden

November edible garden

August 17, 2019  

August is a great time to begin planting for fall and winter harvests.  Get the most out of your edible garden by using all the seasons for fresh, homegrown goodness.

Here are the crops you can start in the August edible garden:

August
Beets

Broccoli

Cabbage

Carrots

Fava beans

Kale

Kohlrabi
Lettuce
Mustard

Onions

Peas

Radish

Scallions

Snow peas
Spinach

Turnips

When planting in the hot months, be sure to keep the soil moist until the plants are well established.  

A great and easy way to start your fall garden is to sow the seeds in a pot on a covered deck or patio.  This makes it easy to keep an eye on the seedlings and protects them from the harsh hot summer sun.  After they have a couple of sets of their true leaves, you can transplant into the garden bed.  Harden them off first by moving the pot to full sun before transplanting.  After transplanting into the garden, keep them watered regularly.

For more summer seed starting tips Outdoor seed starting tips

What's happening in the early August edible garden

Garden in the morning

Sunday, August 4, 2019

August sees the full swing of the summer, warm season garden harvests.  Late sweet corn (plant corn in succession and different varieties to lengthen the harvest), summer squashes (like zucchini), peppers of all types (sweet to hot, hot), tomatoes, Mediterranean herbs, cucumbers, okra, apples, peaches, pears, grapes, beans, melons, figs, eggplant, honey, artichokes, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, onion, and fennel are all in season in the Midwest.  

This year for warm season veggies, I am growing zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, herbs, greens, sprouting broccoli, Egyptian walking onions, eggplant, cucumbers, goji berry, green beans, and stevia.  I planted my zucchini late and it has not started to produce yet.  For zucchini, it is a good idea to replant at the beginning of August to keep the harvest going.  Many do the same with tomatoes.  I did plant 3 tomatoes later and they all look really healthy.

If you are not growing summer veggies in your own garden, your local farmers market is a great place to pick up these seasonal veggies to either eat or preserve.  The best buy on any fruit or vegetable is when it is in season.  You can get even better deals on any produce that has a few blemishes which have no effect on the flavor.  If you are going to can, freeze or dry them, just be sure to remove any blemishes first.

I pick what to have in our garden based on the harvest per foot of garden space needed.  Our garden is incorporated into the flower garden mulch bed and in pots, so we have to be choiceful on what to grow.

In pots, we have had great luck with  Egyptian walking onions (which can be harvested year round), peppers, eggplant, zucchini, cucumber, greens, fig, columnar apple, passion flower, sweet bay, greens, mint, goji berry, lettuce and celery.

I have tried sweet and hot peppers in pots and the garden.  Overall, they seem to do the best in pots.  I am growing a couple of hot peppers-a pequin type and Ancho.  I’ll use the tiny peppers in my season salt I make and the Ancho for chili powder.  I still have frozen Jalapeños and cayennes from last year that I use to make fresh salsa and for hot sauce.

Quick, homemade salsa

Preserving peppers

My sweet peppers are doing well.  I  have gotten many peppers off my sweet Jalapeño type and several off the sweet pepper plants.  I planted all my peppers very late this year so they are doing well for how long they have been growing.

Peppers are for every taste and garden

My first summer squash died from the vine borer.  Plant after June 1 to miss this insect.  The zucchini Cocozelle was planted later.  It is huge and has many blooms but no fruits yet.

Growing zucchini and summer squash

What to do with all that zucchini?!

I have one tomato in a pot that stays small.  Look for compact varieties if growing in a pot or in limited space in the garden.  Weekly care for plants in the ground is sufficient.  A pot with a water reservoir in the bottom is the best solution for lengthening the time between waterings when growing in pots.

Choosing which tomatoes to grow

I grow all of our herbs in the ground except sweet bay.  Sweet bay is a tender perennial and will not survive winters outside so I keep it in a pot to bring in each fall.    I had one last year that was supposed to be hardy in our zone and it didn’t make it.  I put my new ones in pots and will overwinter them in our unheated garage this winter.  Fall is a good time to plant perennial herbs.

Midwest Perennial Vegetable Garden

Rosemary is also tender.  I have tried the several varieties that are supposed to be able to survive a Midwest winter and have yet to find one that will last past 2 seasons.  I have tried to also keep in a pot and bring in each winter, but have not had good luck with this approach, but many do.  So, this is an herb I will buy each spring if overwintering does not work out, plant in the garden, then preserve for the winter by harvesting late in the season and drying.

Harvest and preserve your herbs

Make your own "Herbes de Provence"

Flowers are doing great right now in the garden.  The zinnias, marigolds, dahlias, Hummingbird vine, and Cock's Comb are putting on a big show.

Red zinnia

A quick reminder, save the seeds from your best performers to plant next year.  You can replant seeds from any heirlooms or open pollinated plants.  Not only does it save you money, but it also gives you the plants that do the best under your garden and zone conditions.

Seed saving-fun, easy and a cost saver