Pickled Cucumbers, etc.

The garden has bern going wild this year, and I've been canning something at least every week through June-July as a result. This is not unrelated to the dearth of blog posts

My first bunch of pickling cucumbers came ripe at the same time as well a decent crop of radish seed pods (with plenty more of each to come). In the spirit of efficiency, I decided to make both up with Beeton's Universal Pickle.

As before, I found it convenient to up make at 1/6 scale, using 1 qt vinegar, 3 oz salt, 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper, 1 tsp mace, 1.5 tsp tumeric, 2 tsp mustard seed, scant 1 oz ginger and scant 2 oz shallots (technically 2/3 oz ginger and 1 1/3 oz shallots, but my scale isn't that precise). This quantity filled the four pint jars exactly. Each contained 1 1/4 cucumbers, and a generous handful of radish seed pods (about ~1/3 cup). 

 Processed 10 minutes, per modern safety recommendations. 

Cucmbers and radish pods.

My second batch of cucumbers got a modern dill pickle recipe. The main problem with this year's plentiful cucumber harvest is getting the cucumbers picked while they're still small enough to fit in jars nicely. I'll clear them all on a Monday, and by Wednesday there are somehow more cucumbers, all two tall or wide for my pint jars. So, instead of whole, these dills got quartered lengthwise. At least the next receipt I found calls for them to be sliced.

Modern "fresh-pack dill pickles"