I’d really love to finish the bird on Anne Hughs but I was supposed to have started Friends and Family with a friend three days ago. Sooner or later, she’s going to ask me how I’m doing and I do not want to say “I haven’t started it yet!”
It’s 7:10 p.m. and I’m going to start stitching as soon as I finish this and hopefully, the fireworks won’t be too scary for Cooper. Last night, he was so upset with them. We just came in from outside and there are lots of noisy fireworks out there and he didn’t even seem to notice. Weird.
Today I got started on the last two batches of pickles – another Red Hot Cinnamon batch and another batch of the pickles from the recipe given to me by my friend, Doris. I wanted to make the Red Hot Cinnamon pickles and they have to be soaked in lime water for 24 hours. It’s not hard but kind of a pain because Vince doesn’t want the lime water going down the drain so instead of dumping the cucumbers into a large colander sitting in the sink, I have to dip all the cucumbers out of the brine into the colander. It’s messy since it’s half of a 5 gallon bucket full of cucumbers.
This year I bought 70 pounds of cucumbers over three different times. One of the things I wanted to make was sweet pickle relish and never got around to that. Right now I say . . we’ll use storebought but by Saturday, I may buy more cukes at the farmers’ market because once they’re gone, I’ll be wishing I had made the relish.
I asked Vince to do a taste test with me. We tried Mrs. Wager’s dill, the refrigerator dills, Mrs. Wager’s bread & butter pickles and Doris’ recipe. It’s also requires a 24 hour soak in lime water so I was leaning towards the bread and butter pickles but we both liked Doris’ recipe better so right now I have two five gallon buckets with cucumbers soaking in lime water overnight.
This afternoon I was digging up more potatoes and look at this monster.
It weighs 1 pound, 10 oz. and it’s the biggest potato I’ve ever grown.
I read online that an average Russet potato weights 5 – 10 oz. but there have been potatoes that weigh 6 pounds! That must be about the size of a small watermelon. What’s weird to me is that most of my largest potatoes always weigh about the same. There are always smaller ones at various stages of development but I’ve never had one that was three or four times the size of the other potatoes. That’s something I’ll be pondering for a long time.
I’m a bit over halfway done pulling up the potatoes and I think we will have enough to get through the year plus I’ve replanted 6 or 8 bags of potatoes. I count on 60 – 70 days from planting to pulling for potatoes but that’s planting them in the spring. They should be ready well before the weather gets cooler so I’m expecting to have all the potatoes out of the ground by mid-September.
As much as I love spending time in the garden, I’m so ready for the garden to be done but you know I’ll keep planting and hanging out in the garden til frost comes along and kills off everything.
Glenda says
Judy, Thought I would send you and everyone else my Pickle Relish recipe. It’s not a real
spicy one. If I don’t have a red pepper, I use all green. It is good either way. Grew up with this. I used the old hand grinder attached to our wooden steps so the smell of the onions
wouldn’t be in the house. Have a good day. Have a sweet pickle recipe that has 4 different
spice varieties. Would you like that one? You would need to reheat the brine for 3 days. I really liked them. With you canning , it has made me think of those days of canning. Have a good day and love your email.
Pickle Relish
6 lbs. Cucumbers
2 lbs Onions
2 green peppers
1 red pepper
Grind all and soak 2 hours in 1/2c. salt and 2 pts. of boiling water
Drain
Add: 1 pt. vinegar
1 Tbsp. turmeric
5 c. sugar
1 heaping Tbsp. corn starch
Cook 1/2 hour after it begins to boil. Seal hot.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
Thank you! I would LOVE your pickle recipe. In my opinion, we can never have too many pickles. Thank you so much.
Glenda says
Glenda’s recipe for sweet pickles
Society Chips Sweet Pickle Recipe
Slice cucumbers into size wanted. Pour boiling water over them. Change water for
3 days, last day add 1 tsp. alum to water for each gallon of pickles. Let set overnight.
4th day-make syrup of 1 qt. vinegar
8 c. sugar
2 Tbsp. salt
and one of the set of spices below
Reheat 3 days. Put in jars and seal.
1. (Society chips) 1/2 c. mixed spices
2. (14 day pickles) 2 sticks of cinnamon and 2 tsp. celery seed
3. (Heinz spice pickles) 2 sticks of cinnamon, 1 tsp. celery seed, & 2 tsp. allspice
4. (Crystal pickles) 2 sticks of cinnamon, 1 tsp. mace, 1 tsp. whole cloves
I had a little extra mark by the Heinz and Crystal pickle spices so must have liked
them the best. I used my mom’s crocks to put them in with a glass plate over the
pickles to keep them in the brine. Also a glass of water on top of that! Little extra
note: At the top right hand of my recipe card I have the name “Meta” on it. I got the recipe from my folks’ landlords that sold mom and dad the farm. They were like grandparents to us. So it is a very old but good recipe. Enjoy
judy.blog@gmail.com says
Thank you. I doubt I make any more pickles this year but I will try all four of these variations next year.
Glenda says
Judy forgot to say WOW what a big potato!!! I grew up on a farm in Iowa and we had
a big garden every year. The potatoes a few years were in the field area for a bigger
space We even had what we called an orchard with our apple trees. The apple crisp and apple bars were always so good. We canned and froze so much.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
There is nothing like home grown fruits and veggies. I don’t mind buying from local farmers or the farmers’ market but I so much prefer this to storebought.
patti says
judy, how do you store your potatoes to last so long? i’ve thrown away tons of potatoes over the years (store bought) because they get wrinkled and mushy. sometimes even rotten. with just 2 of us i’d like a better solution than to buy 5 lbs and throw away 1/2 bag.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
Our basement garage is built with two sides that are concrete walls (fully underground) and it’s air conditioned/heated. The a/c unit is in a mechanical room inside the garage so that’s the coldest room in the summer. I keep suggesting we move the bedroom to the garage! There are no windows in that room. There’s a garage door without windows and a walk through door with a window but I put a blackout curtain over it. I store the potatoes in thick cardboard boxes with shredded paper to keep them from being stacked on top of each other. I keep sweet potatoes and winter squash/pumpkins in there in the boxes with paper too. I still have a few winter squash from last year’s garden and a few sweet potatoes that were left in a box I thought was empty.
I think storebought potatoes are about to go bad by the time you get them and if I buy a bag of potatoes and keep them in the kitchen (upstairs and always warm), they will sprout in a week during the summer.
QuilterBea says
Just curious why Vince doesn’t like the lime water going down the drain? I try to watch what goes down because of the septic system but I hadn’t thought about limes being a problem.
Thanks
judy.blog@gmail.com says
Pickling lime isn’t “limes” per se – it’s water that has had 2 cups of powdered lime added to it. The lime doesn’t really dissolve and sinks to the bottom of the bucket (3 – 4 gallons of water with 2 cups of powdered lime). I made 5 or 6 batches of lime pickles so that was 10 to 12 cups of pickling lime that would have settled in the bottom of the septic tank and lines.
I’m sure I wasn’t clear on the pickling lime vs. “lime water”. I grew up with my grandma making “lime pickles” (which makes them very crunchy) and I forget that many people (maybe most all) are not familiar with pickling lime.
Marie L. says
Pickling lime is calcium hydroxide. It is not related to the fruit, lime. I think that the person in the comment might have the two confused and that ie the basis for her question.