Swore I wasn't going to make pickles this summer. Liar, liar, pants on
fire. Made four quarts of quick sour pickles yesterday, straight from
SETP. They're in the canning pantry now, waiting for the day when we
open them, two or three weeks from now.

Pretty much cleaned out the cucumber vines and those will be composted
by next week. We've certainly had our share of bugs this year, last
year, hardly any, this year, tons of them. Even though we had two or
three unusual freezes early on. First time in years we've seen snow,
hail, sleet, and rain, all on the same day. You would think all the bugs
would have frozen.

The Hopi lima beans are blooming like crazy but not setting bean pods.
Lots of bees of various sorts working them but very few beans setting.

Eggplant, and sweet chiles are doing well, the fig tree is done for the
year but the kumquat, which bloomed like crazy, doesn't appear to be
setting fruit. The squash and Swiss chard are done, some gone to the
compost barrel, some sent to the dump (full of bug eggs and larvae).
Tomatoes are still producing but they're getting so sprangly (wild
growth) that we had to prune them again yesterday.

Hot as all get out here, heat index running around 105F nearly every
day. Typical Houston area mugginess (is that a real word?).

We hide most of the day in the air conditioning and less to the power
company cash register go Ka-ching every few minutes.

George

George Shirley wrote:
....
> The Hopi lima beans are blooming like crazy but not setting bean pods.
> Lots of bees of various sorts working them but very few beans setting.
....
> Hot as all get out here, heat index running around 105F nearly every
> day. Typical Houston area mugginess (is that a real word?).

the heat may be too much for the beans
to set fruits, but eventually they should
catch something.

muggy weather, mugginess may be word
enough as it would be understood anyways
from context.


> We hide most of the day in the air conditioning and less to the power
> company cash register go Ka-ching every few minutes.

it has been cool here lately, humid at
times with the rains, but not unbearable
most of the time, we'll run the AC for a
bit to get some of that humidity out of
the house. compared to some mid-summers
this is a fairly mild one.


songbird

Glad to heard of that burst of energy to get the pickles put up Let us know how they turn out. I am down to only one quart of pickled sausage. Might be time for more.

On 7/30/2014 1:09 PM, George Shirley wrote:
> Swore I wasn't going to make pickles this summer. Liar, liar, pants on
> fire. Made four quarts of quick sour pickles yesterday, straight from
> SETP. They're in the canning pantry now, waiting for the day when we
> open them, two or three weeks from now.
>
> Pretty much cleaned out the cucumber vines and those will be composted
> by next week. We've certainly had our share of bugs this year, last
> year, hardly any, this year, tons of them. Even though we had two or
> three unusual freezes early on. First time in years we've seen snow,
> hail, sleet, and rain, all on the same day. You would think all the bugs
> would have frozen.
>
> The Hopi lima beans are blooming like crazy but not setting bean pods.
> Lots of bees of various sorts working them but very few beans setting.
>
> Eggplant, and sweet chiles are doing well, the fig tree is done for the
> year but the kumquat, which bloomed like crazy, doesn't appear to be
> setting fruit. The squash and Swiss chard are done, some gone to the
> compost barrel, some sent to the dump (full of bug eggs and larvae).
> Tomatoes are still producing but they're getting so sprangly (wild
> growth) that we had to prune them again yesterday.
>
> Hot as all get out here, heat index running around 105F nearly every
> day. Typical Houston area mugginess (is that a real word?).
>
> We hide most of the day in the air conditioning and less to the power
> company cash register go Ka-ching every few minutes.
>
> George


Do Asian cukes make decent pickles?

That's what I planted this year; they are very mild and "burpless" long
snaky things with lots of spines. I planted them because Patty likes
cucumbers, but I think she's afraid of these. I've eaten one or two,
and I made some "refrigerator pickles" with a big one, but I got them
too vinegary.

I'm not much into fresh cucumbers, but they're okay on a sandwich.

Bob

On 8/29/2014 7:43 PM, zxcvbob wrote:
> On 7/30/2014 1:09 PM, George Shirley wrote:
>> Swore I wasn't going to make pickles this summer. Liar, liar, pants on
>> fire. Made four quarts of quick sour pickles yesterday, straight from
>> SETP. They're in the canning pantry now, waiting for the day when we
>> open them, two or three weeks from now.
>>
>> Pretty much cleaned out the cucumber vines and those will be composted
>> by next week. We've certainly had our share of bugs this year, last
>> year, hardly any, this year, tons of them. Even though we had two or
>> three unusual freezes early on. First time in years we've seen snow,
>> hail, sleet, and rain, all on the same day. You would think all the bugs
>> would have frozen.
>>
>> The Hopi lima beans are blooming like crazy but not setting bean pods.
>> Lots of bees of various sorts working them but very few beans setting.
>>
>> Eggplant, and sweet chiles are doing well, the fig tree is done for the
>> year but the kumquat, which bloomed like crazy, doesn't appear to be
>> setting fruit. The squash and Swiss chard are done, some gone to the
>> compost barrel, some sent to the dump (full of bug eggs and larvae).
>> Tomatoes are still producing but they're getting so sprangly (wild
>> growth) that we had to prune them again yesterday.
>>
>> Hot as all get out here, heat index running around 105F nearly every
>> day. Typical Houston area mugginess (is that a real word?).
>>
>> We hide most of the day in the air conditioning and less to the power
>> company cash register go Ka-ching every few minutes.
>>
>> George
>
>
> Do Asian cukes make decent pickles?
>
> That's what I planted this year; they are very mild and "burpless" long
> snaky things with lots of spines. I planted them because Patty likes
> cucumbers, but I think she's afraid of these. I've eaten one or two,
> and I made some "refrigerator pickles" with a big one, but I got them
> too vinegary.
>
> I'm not much into fresh cucumbers, but they're okay on a sandwich.
>
> Bob
We planted Asian cukes one time and made pickles while they were young
and firm. We also planted Armenian cukes once and made pickles of them
although they are technically squash. Middle grandson planted some this
year and has been eating them and likes them better than regular cukes.
Wouldn't hurt to try a very small batch and see how they go.

Someone, somewhere, has pickled everything that could possibly be
pickled. If you make a stab at it let us know how they came out.

Heck, I made hummus out of eggplant yesterday, little tahini, rinsed
chick peas, lemon juice, etc. Found the recipe on line, turns out we
like it real well. That's the one plant we have a lot of, eggplant.
Ichiban, Black Beauty, Louisiana Long Green, all producing well even
though we're hitting 90F plus on a daily basis.

George

In article >, George Shirley
> wrote:

> Heck, I made hummus out of eggplant yesterday, little tahini, rinsed
> chick peas, lemon juice, etc. Found the recipe on line, turns out we
> like it real well. That's the one plant we have a lot of, eggplant.
> Ichiban, Black Beauty, Louisiana Long Green, all producing well even
> though we're hitting 90F plus on a daily basis.

I've tried growing eggplant up here, but our season is too variable. On
a good fall we can get a couple of weeks of good weather, but a killing
frost in late September isn't uncommon. I'd need to be able to start
them about February for a May planting, I think. Too bad, we get little
variation in the shops here. long thing Japanese and the traditional
large purple ones are all I see.

--
³Youth ages, immaturity is outgrown, ignorance can be educated, and drunkenness
sobered, but stupid lasts forever.² -- Aristophanes