With cucumbers from your own garden, you can be sure that they have been grown free of pesticides. You can keep your own harvest for a whole year by making pickles.

Pickling cucumbers has been practiced in Germany for centuries

Can I pickle only certain cucumbers?

At any garden center you will find seeds for two different types of cucumbers: cucumbers or cucumbers and pickling cucumbers. The plants belong to the same species, but have different properties. Pickled cucumbers have a less even surface, remain smaller and are more robust. However, if the cucumber harvest turns out to be higher than expected, you can safely harvest the young fruits and use them for pickling. The taste may differ slightly from the gherkin taste you are familiar with, as cucumbers have a more intense gherkin aroma.

A proven recipe for pickles

Soaking in vinegar water is a proven method for preserving food. At a time when there were neither freezers, tins nor imports from other countries, this was one of the ways households used to get vegetables in the cold season.
Pickling pickles isn't difficult if you follow the basic recipe below. Hygienic work is particularly important when preserving food, so that the food does not come into contact with germs and spoil.

For pickling one kilogram of cucumbers in vinegar broth you need:

  • 1 kg pickled cucumbers or young harvested cucumbers
  • 1 liter of water
  • 0.5 l white wine vinegar, table vinegar or spice vinegar
  • 1 onion
  • 1 bunch fresh or 2 teaspoons dried dill
  • 2 tbsp salt
  • 300 grams of sugar
  • Spices to taste: mustard seeds, peppercorns, juniper berries, bay leaves, allspice
  • large mason jars

Step by step:

  1. First, prepare the mason jars by rinsing them in boiling water or sterilizing them in the oven.
  2. Wash the cucumbers, brushing them with a vegetable brush if necessary and removing any remaining blossoms and long stalks.
  3. Optionally, you can slice or wedge the cucumbers. Classically, however, the vegetables remain in one piece.
  4. Place the whole cucumbers vertically in the jars or fill in the cucumber pieces.
  5. The onion cut into cubes or rings and the chopped dill are also included in the glasses, as are the selected spices.
  6. Cook the decoction by placing the water and vinegar in a large enough saucepan, adding the sugar and salt and cooking until the sugar and salt have dissolved.
  7. Fill the jars completely with the boiling vinegar and seal immediately.
  8. Let the pickles steep in a dark, cool place for at least two weeks. Its aroma improves steadily the longer it steeps.
  9. Consume the pickles within a year. This way you are taken care of until the next harvest season.

The garden journal freshness ABC

How can fruit and vegetables be stored correctly so that they stay fresh for as long as possible?

The garden journal freshness ABC as a poster:

  • as a free PDF file to print out yourself

Category:

Vegetable garden