Pickles Pickles

I planted three hills of bush cucumbers this spring. Even with all the shade from the surrounding trees, cuks seem to do very well here. I was noticing the profusion of yellow flowers on the vines one day in early summer, with just some very very tiny baby cuks starting to grow. We had five days of rain in a row. I decided to check under the leaves and cuks were everywhere...large and small. We've been eating cucumber, tomato, and basil salads, and sweet refrigerator pickles.

Our son Wes requested some *real* dill pickles, so we cut up seven cuks into a gallon jar and added one hot pepper and some dill and garlic from the garden, plus some fancy spices we had in the cupboard. They sit on the counter for 2-3 days to ferment, then into the refrigerator until they are gone. Yum!