Port Potager

All of the sudden, we have cucumbers. And not just one or two. Today I picked 5 1/2 pounds of the most perfect pickling cukes we've ever managed to grow.  And it just so happens that five pounds is the perfect amount for our gallon crock. Time to brine some pickles! Brined pickles are fermented, and we made our first batch last summer . Up until then we had always done a fresh pack with vinegar and canned them. Those are good, too — I do love vinegar! — but the flavors of a fermented pickle are much more complex. Fermented foods are also good for you , which make our pickle and sauerkraut crocks suddenly more trendy than Dutchy .  We liked last summer's brined batch well enough, but the seasoning wasn't our favorite. The recipe we used called for pickling spice, and the generic one we found was pretty heavy on the cinnamon. So this year I am determined to get the best spicy, kosher flavor with our brined pickles. I'm hoping for a classic here. Althou...

Now that the holidays are over, there's more time to devote to some indoor garden tasks that have been put off. Soon that will include seed starting , but for now, there are still seeds to be separated from the dried plants that they are still stuck to. Back in December I finished that process with the black beans , and this week I moved on to dill: Over the course of the summer as the dill seed heads matured, I would pinch them off of their stems and throw them into a paper bag on the porch to dry. After sitting there for three or four months, they are definitely fully cured now: Many of the seeds already had fallen off their stems, but plenty more seedheads were still intact. I found the most efficient way to deal with shaking dill seeds loose is to pick up just a single head: Then squeeze the little branches together farther up the stem, so the seeds form a tight cluster: With your other hand, you can roll those seeds between your thumb and fing...