We have had a bumper crop from our cucumber plants this year. I have canned bread and butter pickles, dill pickles, sweet pickles, and sweet pickle relish. I plan to give away jars of pickles to family and friends this coming fall. We only planted about 8 cucumber plants in our small backyard garden, but they produced an amazing number of cucumbers this past July and August. I have shelves full of various types of pickles that I have canned. I’m not really a pickle eater, but my husband loves to eat pickles. But I do love to eat sweet pickles and to use sweet pickle relish in potato salad and on tuna sandwiches.

Making Bread & Butter Pickles

I decided to start the canning season with a batch of bread and butter pickles. I used the Bread and Butter Pickles recipe found in Food in Jars on page 130. See my page here for a list of my favorite canning resources.

Making bread and butter pickles involves several steps. Pick pickles that are about 5 inches long. In order to have firmer pickles, soak the cucumber slices in ice and saltwater for two hours. While the pickles are soaking, you can prepare the boiling water canner, jars, and lids. You can also check the bands for rust and discard any bands that are too rusty. About a half an hour before the pickles are done soaking, you can mix up the pickling vinegar, sugar and spices. Bring the picking liquid to a boil and simmer for a half an hour. Drain and rinse the pickles and put them into the pickling liquid. Bring to a boil, then can the pickles according to the recipe.

I’ve made these pickles before, and they usually turn out good. They are not sharp like dill pickles and are not as sweet as sweet pickles. They are great on sandwiches and burgers.

Making Dill Pickles

I made dill pickles four ways this summer. I used recipes for two of the ways and a commercial mix for one of the remaining batches. For the last batch of pickles, I used a liquid mix to make a quart of refrigerated dill pickles. No one really liked the refrigerated quart of dill pickles. Perhaps they didn’t sit long enough to develop the dill flavor.

Batch 1

Recipe in Food in Jars, page 127. These turned out with lower dill flavor, will add dill weed when opened. I was disappointed with this recipe. But my dill seed was over a year old. This made a very small batch with a few of the early pickles I picked from the garden.

Batch 2

I used the Dill Pickles recipe in the 2014 edition of the Blue Ball Book on page 78. These will probably turn out with lower dill flavor because I ran out of dill seed, will add dill weed when each jar is opened. Made 6 pints.

Batch 3

Used a commercial dill pickle spice mix. The dill pickles turned out fine. Made several pints and a couple of quart jars.

Batch 4

I used a commercial liquid mix and placed a pound of leftover cucumber spears in a quart and filled the quart with the mix. I let the mix sit in the refrigerator for 24 hours before we tried it. It wasn’t really that good. I won’t be buying a liquid mix for pickles again.

Making Sweet Pickle Relish

I love sweet pickle relish, especially in hot potato salad. I use a mini chopper or food processor to chip the cucumbers into small pieces. I really like the Sweet Pickle Relish recipe found on 2014 Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving, page 89. The recipe turns out just like a popular store-bought sweet pickle relish when you don’t use as many onions and bell peppers called for in the recipe. I also use more plain vinegar instead of all apple cider vinegar.

Making sweet pickle relish is very similar to making bread and butter pickles. You chip the pickles instead of slicing them, but they also sit in a brine for a couple of hours. They are also drained and rinsed before being added to the sweet pickling liquid and brought to a boil.

A Few Ending Remarks

Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. As you saw above, I made a mistake in a batch of dill pickles when I ran out of dill seed. I plan to correct this when each jar is opened from that batch and it will sit a week in the refrigerator with added dried dill added to the jar. That should add some more dill flavor. If it doesn’t work, and no one likes the pickles, then we’ll throw it out. It doesn’t cost much to make a batch of pickles from your own cucumbers: a dollar’s worth of vinegar, and a couple of dollars in spices.