We had a couple of false starts on our garden this year... in fact we were pretty sure we weren't going to have any produce to speak of, but in the end our garden produced a lot of cucumbers. We also ended up with a large crop of tomatoes, but we are still waiting for them to ripen. If they do, we will be making and canning salsa.
So what do you do with a pile of cucumbers? Make pickles of course. We read about canning, bought jars, and gathered ingredients. We also bought 2 pounds of green beans to make dilly beans with.
John doesn't like this picture. I think its funny - he was hamming, but managed to look possessed. The untold truth is we enjoyed the project and are VERY excited to try the results just as soon as the pickles are aged.
The process and recipes are straight forward, but the actual act of canning and processing is work for octopus. The hardest part was keeping the jars at a high enough temperature. Water boils at a considerably lower temperature at high altitude. The whole project took us about 4 hours all told.