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| We had an over-abundance of cukes last year, and made pickles for the first time. We've discovered that even though they were slicing cukes and not quite as crisp as pickles as we'd like, we like pickles more than we thought. I'm planning the garden now, and would like to plant some cucumbers just for pickling. Any suggestions for best varieties to try? Also, I'd love to hear everyone's favorite pickle recipes. Thanks! |
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| Hi Lisa - there are lots of discussions here about making pickles, best varieties, safe and unsafe recipes, etc. that the search will pull up for you. Just type 'pickles' in the search bar at the bottom of the page. My personal preferences are two of the varieties bred especially for making pickles - National Pickling and Boston Pickling but there are many other varieties available. I'm going to try a couple of new ones this year - Agnes as it is bred for making gerkins, Calypso as I have read good things about it. Which ones do best for you all depends on the common diseases you have to deal with in the garden as some are more resistant than others. But the big tip for success is to pickle them fresh - within 24 hours of harvest. To have enough to do that and make it worth the time and effort you have to plant several plants. Otherwise they sit in the fridge waiting till you have enough and they make poor pickles. Dave PS: you'll find all the pickling recipes you might need at NCHFP and I strongly recommend the book Joy of Pickling for safe tested recipes. Keep in mind that many of the old 'family' recipes floating around are too low in acid for shelf storage and are meant for fridge storage only. |
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- Posted by myfamilysfarm 5b (My Page) on Mon, Jan 20, 14 at 16:24
| I used the variety "homemade" last year and they did really well even not used within the '24 hr' time period. I also did not use any pickle crisp. Pickles and slicing cukes are not quite the same thing, close. Try to choose pickles if you are making pickles from them. |
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| If you are a real pickle perfectionist, you need to know that what kind of pickle you are making might influence you to what variety of pickling cuke you wish to grow. Some are bred to make the perfect gherkin, some are more large and tubular shaped, even when young with small seeds to make lovely dill spears. I have two heirloom varieties I adore for bread and butter pickles and they also do well in my garden with productivity. One of them is called Sumter, and I'd have to look at the other variety from my old notes. For my dills, I like Boston Pickler. |
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| If cucumber beetles are a problem, County Fair pickling cuke is quite resistant to the wilt they carry. |
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