I was fortunate to have 4 lemon cucumbers ripe at one time, normally it is about 2 at once. Not having the full range of grocery store spices available to me to use Ruhlman’s pickling recipe, I took them to my friend Christian’s and bartered for half, if he would pickle them. He had just harvested a couple of very large cucumbers from his garden, and I bought some more at the Triangle Farmer’s Market Wednesday. Pickling should be done in large batches.
Pickling spice, water, vinegar, salt
First he mixed the pickling spice, vinegar, water and salt.
Fancy mandoline, made slicing a breeze
Packing the jars
The lemon cucumbers might not be the best pickling cucumbers, because they have more seedy pulp area, and are not as firm. But, we will find out.
Lemon cucumber
Next, we filled the jars with the pickling liquid. Actually, the “I” in “we” petted the puppy.
Almost pickles
You know how pickles make your mouth water just thinking about them? That would be me, right about now. 3-4 weeks later, we should have some amazing pickles.
And for the cat lovers:
Cats just seem to love boxes
looks fun–let me know how they turn out!
I think the Lemon Cukes need to be dealt with pretty soon after picking. I picked the ones we pickled last week and they had gone a bit soft and were hard to slice. So, it will be interesting to see how they compare to the green garden cukes and those from the market yesterday.
Hey Carla!
I am a bit disappointed as my cucumber plant looks great but is not setting fruit. So far I have picked only 2 cukes! I planted Armenian, which in the past have been superprolific for me. Any idea what can be wrong?
Hey Claudia – mine were disappointing for a while too, gorgeous, flowering, but no cukes. Before the last big rain I fertilized with Ladybug and tossed some worm castings around them and they’ve been going great guns ever since. Maybe they just want some food.