Category: gherkins

Posted on

Mud, snow and seedlings

So, just as I was sowing a few trays of vegetable seeds and contemplating getting my potatoes into the ground, it snowed.

Basil seedlings under the blue UV lights of doom

It’s the lambing snow. Every year in March or April it happens, apparently, just as the lambs are born. Poor things. My seedlings have visibly shrunk back into the soil in horror at the prospect of emerging into such sub zero temperatures.

I feel so cruel tempting them into germination on a heat pad in the caravan only for them to swiftly realise the reality that they’ve been born into..

Gherkinage!

I’m hoping for milder temperatures and a break in the rain and sleet so that I can carry on preparing the raised beds and get a few hardy things out there. It’s bitterly cold out there at the moment.

Rather leggy looking tomato seedlings

The polycrub is supposed to be being installed next week, and at the moment the site that it will sit in is a bit of a quagmire.

Mud everywhere.

Posted on

Picklification Complete

A fellow island crofter generously responded to my plea for small cucumbers to pickle and donated a bag of them.

Salting peacefully awaiting their vinegar bath

Freshly picked from their polytunnel, small and crunchy, there was a definite frisson of excitement as I clutched the bag with barely concealed anticipation and drove home to check the vinegar situation.

There’s something addictive about pickling. Gherkins, or dill pickles, are my very favourite pickle of all time, and something I find hard to buy in the shops locally. This timely donation was therefore all the more meaningful and I was determined to do them justice.

Over the last few days I’ve tenderly washed and patted dry, salted, rinsed and patted dry again these little nuggets of joy. A newborn could not have been more cosseted.

Oh yes

I’ve sterilised jars, prepared my vinegar and crooned over the additions like an alchemist. Enough peppercorns? Too much mustard seed? A few more chilli flakes perhaps? I even picked the last of my dill flowers especially a few days ago, before the rain flattened everything, to add to the jars.

And so they are done. Behold the magnificence of these island grown pickles.

Picklification is now complete.