Pickles!

My cucumbers have been doing pretty well and I wanted to try canning pickles instead of just the fridge pickles I have been making.  I like the instructions on the Pick Your Own site.

They suggest to use a canning mix.  The recipes all call for 8-11 pounds of pickles.  That canner used to belong to my late Grandma Anna, it makes me happy to be able to use it and think of her.

I had been collecting pickles for a few days though and only had about three pounds.  So I had to do some math and hope that it works.

My husband wanted some dill pickles so I started with those.

 

I cut off the ends (the blossom ends contain an enzyme that make the pickles mushy) and cut them into spears.  Apparently putting grape leaves in with them make them more crunchy.  Luckily I have four muscadine grape vines in my garden.

 

And here they are waiting to go into the water bath for processing.  Can't wait to try them.

My bees have been very busy (we are planning to do a honey extraction next week) and I am hoping to have some more cucumbers to pickle in the near future.

Pick Your Own Blueberries

Today we took the kids to Green Meadows Farm in Monticello to pick blueberries.

We have done this several years now but the last few years they had been picked out.  Not this year, they have a ton of berries and they told us that the day before they had had 1200 people there. 

We were able to find plenty of berries.  They kids seemed to enjoy it.

You had to keep an eye on the three year old and remind him to pick the purple berries, not the green.

 

 

We picked three pounds.  I don't have enough for jam so I think we will make some blueberry ice cream.  The owner of the farm, Delores Green, has the best recipe and she sells a cook book for $10 at the farm.  They also sell the ice cream, but they were all out.

Today's Harvest

Today's Harvest

 

I hope I have enough cucumbers to make canned dill pickles.  I like some of the recipes on this website and find their directions helpful:  Pick Your Own