The "official" garden thread (Page 3)

Salt and Pepper and eat them like apples is my way.

When things get rocking I'll stand in my garden, watering it, and pull tomatoes, peppers,  and cucumbers right off the plants and eat them like I'm grazing.  If it's just me at home, that's supper some nights.

Fishing up here SUCKS.....never seen so much water.  can't get on the rivers and our lakes are 20-30 feet high.  I'll be short about 15 gallons of fish fillets going into hunting season.....gonna be a whole bunch of chickens running around without wings.  LOL

I don't even need salt and pepper.  I can eat them by the dozen.  Love those things. 

I have plenty of extras if you want to come get some. 

Trying to thin the bass herd as much as possible to take the pressure off the crappie/blue gill a little bit.  The bass are all pretty small (2-3 lb) but the pan fish are huge. 

I haven't stocked my walleye and catfish yet.  

So, 3 cucumbers and a  half dozen banana peppers are the first vegetable pickings of the summer here.  I tried a different pickle recipe a month ago with a store bought cucumber and got good results.  Aesthetically, I don't like them as much as my old cold pickling recipe because the brine is not clear after mixing with the garlic......but the flavor is WAY better.

The recipe (no cooking involved) is......

1 cup water

2/3 cup white distiller, sugar and salt vinegar

1 tblspoon sugar

1.5 tblspoon kosher salt

2 garlic clove  (it specifically calls for the frozen, crushed garlic that comes prepackaged.  It dissolves better in the brine)

Dill weed (to taste)......I use about 1 teaspoon

peppercorns to taste.....I use a tablespoon

Mix the water, vinegar, sugar and salt.  Shake or stir vigorously until the sugar and salt is dissolved.

In a quart jar (or 2 pint jars)  pack cucumbers, peppers, garlic, peppercorns, and dill weed.  Pour the brine into the jar to cover the contents.  After the lid is on shake it gently to mix the garlic and dill weed well.  Refrigerate.  You can eat them in 24 hours, but wait 48 for best flavor.  They will keep for a couple of months.  These 7 pints i made last night will be gone by the end of the weekend is my guess......my kids devour them as fast as I can make them.  This is 3 large cucumbers (8-10 inches) and 6 banana peppers of about 6 inches.

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Can you "bama boys not read a recipe?  Does it not say 1 tablespoon sugar and 1 1/2 tablespoon kosher salt? Is there not 1 cup water and 2/3 cup white distilled vinegar?  Mix those four together until the sugar and salt is dissolved.  If you need more, double it, or triple it......engineer it dammit!!  Use your retired skills!!  Must I hold your hand?  Are you going to ask me what kosher salt is? 

LOL  Now I see what you are talking about.  I don't know how that happened.......I was probably channeling mdg. 

I got kicked out of the link when I was writing that post and it got jumbled up.  I thought I got it put back together but.......

Just distiller dammit....salt vinegar!!!  HAHAHA!

I've got some habanero peppers coming in and I'm going to use them for some of the next pickles.......we'll see.

bee's are doing great.  This frame is covered in capped brood, which are the soon to be baby bees. 
Two of the three hives are doing great, but it looks like one of them may have lost their queen.  It's substantially behind the other two and doesn't have any new capped brood or eggs.  

Yeah, bees rock for that.  They're relatively easy to get going.
There's a bit of an initial investment to get things going, but once they're running it's just a little time each week.

This is our first year so we don't know how it will all play out in the long run.

Look, this is a simple fact of life......we are just above the latitude line that allows us to consider eating canned meat. (or maybe it's not latitude at all, maybe it's hwy. 60    ) I know it's a thing down there, but no....we don't eat that.  However, we will make a bomb out of a pressure cooker so it's not like we don't have anything in common.

Every damn chance I get.  Tannerite is your friend.  So much easier than making pipe bombs.