By Jennie
We last left our intrepid heroine (that would be me) fighting off Topsy-Turvy related anxiety while attempting to grow tomatoes. Alas, that tale did not end well; we got one lousy cherry tomato before the Topsy-Turvy succumbed to the lure of gravity (that sucker was heavy) and the experiment was declared finito. Let us never speak of it again.
Undaunted, I soldiered on and planted several cucumber plants. Now that tale is one of success (with some failure mixed in). The plants took off right away, and before I knew it were trailing vines all over the place, vines I awkwardly attempted to harness with stakes and some netting (to keep beasties out, though the little beasties that have gnawed on some of my other plants did not seem much interested in cucumber leaves). Before I knew it, tiny cucumbers sprouted out of little white flowers and grew, quickly, into hardy, pickable cucumbers. I will never get over actually seeing a vegetable grow from something I’ve planted. I mean, I’ve long known that vegetables, you know, grow in the ground and all, but considering that 99.999999% of all of the vegetables I’ve consumed have come from the grocery store, it’s still a novel experience.
We ate some of the cucumbers with hummus and some in salads, and they were delicious. Then I got the bright idea to take my domesticity even further and make pickles. My aunt used to make pickles when I was a child and there is nothing like a fresh pickle – really, it tastes about 100 times better than jarred pickles, and I generally like those. My aunt couldn’t remember the recipe; she’d gotten it from an older lady she knew (“a White Russian who was very nice unless the subject of Communists came up”), and hadn’t made them in probably 30 years. So I looked online and found a likely looking recipe, by Alton Brown. I wanted to avoid canning with the sterilizing jars, etc. because I have this idea that if I sterilize the jars incorrectly I’m going to give someone some deadly bacteria and they will DIE because of my pickles. As good as fresh pickles are, they probably aren’t worth deadly botulism.
Anyway, this recipe involved fermenting the pickles for a time in a “cool, dark place.” Unfortunately, my attempt coincided with one of our September heat waves, and there wasn’t really any “cool” space in the house. I’m not sure if that’s what did the pickles in, or if I did something else wrong. Whatever the case: days passed; bubbles were supposed to be forming and rising to the surface on my pickles. I finally had a few lazy bubbles one day, but after that, nothing. I waited extra days. I watched the pickles avidly. Finally, I decided to try one, to see if it had that wonderful, fresh cucumber taste I remembered.
It was awful. The pickles hadn’t gone bad in any identifiable way – the texture was okay and there was no obvious mold on them, the whole thing smelled (pretty much) okay. But when I tasted the pickle it had this indefinable OFF taste that I can only liken to tobacco. It was gross. It wasn’t totally inedible, but it wasn’t anything you would want to eat, either. With a heavy heart, I threw my first batch of pickles away.
By now the cucumber vines were waning – we could see only a few small cucumbers that seemed likely to grow out to a decent size. Time was running out, and I had to decide if I would sacrifice more cucumbers to the Great Pickle Experiment of 2010. Finally I decided to go for it. I found another recipe (this time one of Bobby Flay’s) for pickles that were really just more or less marinated cucumbers . They turned out to be delicious. I think the fact that they were sliced made the marinade/brine penetrate more easily. (For anyone interested in trying this particular recipe, I omitted the sugar – I didn’t have any on hand – and after tasting the pickles I added some salt. But I love salt.) These might not have quite been the fresh pickles of my childhood, but they were spicy, tangy and cucumber-y. I even unbent a bit from my fear of canning and poured the pickles and brine into a cleaned (but not sterilized) Mason jar. In the refrigerator, in a tightly closed jar, they did last longer than the week specified in the recipe – more like several weeks.
So, my attempts at pioneer-style domesticity go on, with just enough successes to keep me trying. I planted some radishes that I won’t even talk about, and a winter crop of brussel sprouts and broccoli that I suspect are going nowhere. But that’s a tale for another day.
Remind me after the holidays to pass on a very simple refrigerated pickle receipe to you. No fail, and they are yummy. Jeannie, no heavy brine at all. They will last up to 6 months or longer.
Jennie,
I am glad you had some success with the cucumbers. My mom makes the best refrigerated cucumbers but she does not use a recipe. She always says – “I use a little of this and a little of that.” Well I think I must use too much of this and not enough of that because mine never tastes as good as hers.
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My husband and I tried the Topsy Turvy strawberry plant. We had one strawberry and it died before we could pick it. It was also very heavy and almost appeared moldy. Not a good system.
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Snickers, I would be interested in the pickle recipe. I think maybe Ann is going to do a thread in the next couple of weeks about recipes so you can post it there also.
Thanks, snickers! I like the homemade pickles so much I’ve made them a couple of more times with store-bought cucumbers.
Jennie’s second attempt at pickles — magnificent!
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a white Russian who was very nice unless the subject of Communists came up”
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I’m sure it will be clear to most, but “White Russian” had nothing to do with the woman’s skin color, but rather that she belonged to a school of thought that opposed the Bolsheviks. My aunt wasn’t/isn’t a Communist, but at the time (early 70’s), she leaned very Left.
Luckily, pickles know no political distinctions. 🙂
Congratulations, Jennie! I’ve never had a fresh pickle that I remember, nor have I tried growing cukes.
I am still laughing at your “pioneer-style domesticity” comment. Why buy sugar? Try tapping your own sugar maple nest time. Or you could keep bees. 🙂
Ha, Ann, I don’t think I’m ready for bees yet! Maybe I’ll grow my own dill next time for the pickles – that seems about more my speed.
Jennie congrats on the second try at pickles. I have never pickled anything. My mom always used a pressure cooker. Those scare me, I don’t trust myself around something that can blow up on my stove. I love fresh cucumbers. Yum Yum.
My topsy turvy tomatoes did not do well either. I don’t think it holds enough soil to sustain the plant. With hanging them, it’s hard to get them partly shaded and it was so hot here this summer it made hard on the gardens. Mine just cooked in the heat. My ground tomatoes came in late, but they gave plenty in the way of green tomatoes. I wish I still had some to fry. I hate waiting a whole year for more.
I realize I am a little late on this thread — but I bought pickles from my local Farmer’s Market this summer and tried to make pickles too! Mine tasted like pure vinegar, so I gave up after my first attempt. I love fresh pickles, but usually settle for the refrigerated ones at the grocery store. Maybe I’ll try again this year.
Seeing these cucumbers reminds me of the time I planted six plants, just six one year. These six plants produced so many beautiful cucumbers, I sold them to the Farmer’s Market, until they said they did not need anymore. I gave them to friends, restaurants, family, clients and even fed them to my pot belly pig. We could not figure out why we got so many cucumbers and then one day we found out. In a hole in a 100 year old oak tree, near the plants, was a bee hive. A giant bee hive.
My husband was mowing around the tree with his tractor and that is when we saw them. Apparently they had been pollinating the plants. That is the only explanation we could come up, why six cucumber plants could feed the whole town. The next year my bees came back,to the horror of the carpenters working on my house. I was working in my flower garden and one guy looks out the door and says, what the heck, there are bees flying all around you. I told him, “my bees are back!”. “Don’t worry, they won’t bother you”. And they didn’t. I did not plant vegetables that year and the following year, they did not come back. Maybe they saw the “For Sale” sign in my yard. LOL.
So if you have a bee hive in your yard, leave them alone and let them do their business. You won’t regret it.
Mac,
Those bee’s do wonder for gardens!! It’s a dying art to see bee hives out in the country anymore. For sale?? Did they follow you to your new home? LOL
No they did not snickers. I wish they had. I moved to the city and all the snooties would probably kill them off if they saw something like that. It was a wonderful thing to see this hive. By the way, I did have a bee man look at the hive, to make sure they were not killer bees, since our county had reports of killer bees in the area. I figured they were o.k. when they didn’t attack my husband on the tractor. But to see them protecting their queen, was awesome!
Also ladies, if you are fortunate to have the big yellow garden spiders, don’t kill them. They are natures pesticides. They will catch all those nasty critters that like to eat your plants and you can go out every morning and see them grow overnight. They will become huge.
Man I miss those spiders and bees. LOL
Mac,
Welcome to Imperfect Women.
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Snickers has a beautiful garden and we featured it in two different posts that you can find here:
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https://imperfectwomen.com/how-does-your-garden-grow/
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and here:
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https://imperfectwomen.com/how-does-my-garden-grow-very-well-thank-you/
Thank you Pam. I love snickers yard. So tidy and green. And those veggies look yummy.
Topsy Turvy’s don’t work well! Just plant things the way they were supposed to grow. 🙂