I let this Black Seeded Simpson lettuce plant go to seed. It will still need a month or so before I harvest the seed head. This is the second generation in my garden. More reliable, sustainable, self reliant, and frugal than buying the seeds next year.
There were leftover cucumbers, onions, and dill do I added salt, pepper, lemon juice, yogurt, tomato, to make a German cucumber salad. It was very good.
The pickle cucumbers have been producing quite a few cucumbers. They all add up. I try to harvest at 3 to 5 inch size, but some are sneaky and grow larger before I see them. Most of these are from the seeds I saved last summer and planted this spring. Also, dill, garlic, onion, grape leaf. Add brine, mustard seeds, celery seeds, turmeric, and I set up two batches of fermented pickles. I also added some sugar to one, to see if that would speed the fermentation, and added so e uncooked sauerkraut juice to both as a starter.
Most of the onions are falling over and drying. A lot are dramatically large. Raised bed seems to work very well. The seeds that I started in Jan did the best so far, although the sets did OK. The New York Early are huge, the Yellow Spanish are also very big. Not all, but some of them. The shallots from seeds also did surprisingly well, huge shallots.
These are from Costata Romanesco zucchini, an old Italian heirloom variety. They are bearing like crazy. I have to check every morning so I catch them at a relatively small (9") size.
First, I tried a cold pack method, using a packaged Bread and Butter pickle brine and spice product. I had to calculate lower sizes, but I think I got it right. Unfortunately, during the canning process, the slices shrunk and floated, so the bottom half of the jars is just pickle juice, mainly vinegar. Since these are vinegar and brine, I think they will keep, but they are not how I wanted them.
So I decided to use a hot pack method, which pre-cooks the pickles so they do all their shrinking and lose their air before packing. I followed the USDA canning method as exactly as I could. I did have to make a half recipe due to my canner size. I also added very thin slices of my fresh harvested Music garlic, sliced on mandolin.
