It depends on what you want for flavor, how many seeds you will accept, and how important it is to be bitter-free. "Straight Eight" is a great cuke; but it has a fairly large seed cavity, and IMO, is best picked young. It was mildly bitter for me on occasion, but this is minimized if the plants are kept watered. Many of the Asian varieties are burpless, and generally very low in bitterness. Long & thin, too, much like the English cukes. Suyo (there are several spellings in circulation) is a good commercial cultivar. Yamato Extra Long is another. Yamato Extra Long I've witnessed SSE's Nippon Sanjaku Kiuri on their farm & it was highly productive with long, skinny cukes; but I have haven't tasted it. If you like crunchy & bitter-free, try Armenian. Outstanding flavor when picked young. It is actually an elongated melon, though, bred to be eaten immature. The "cukes" are hairy, not spiny. My personal favorite is not exactly an heirloom, although I doubt it can be found commercially. WI 5207 (developed in my home state) is a strange bird... an open-pollinated parthenocarpic slicer. If grown under cover it will produce large numbers of seedless cukes (they have tiny, undeveloped seeds). Even if pollinated, there will be few seeds, and they will have a small seed cavity. The flavor is very mild & low in acid. The vines are also resistant to a host of diseases.

Total newbie here but I figured I'd put in my 2 cents. I started container gardening this year and I have 4 picklebush and 2 burpless (which I found out too late are not great for pickling so I've been giving them away). With my 4 picklebush, I get 6-10 ripe cukes a day so I can do a small batch of pickles every day or two. I've been using the Ball Kosher Dill mix in a can just because I can easily do whatever size batch I have ready. I want to try some other mixes and making my own but so far the Ball is all I've done. I'm a working single mom with two little boys so "quick and easy" is a must. I bring in a few cukes and wash them, put the pickle mix and vinegar on the stove while I slice the cukes and put them in jars, pour the boiling liquid into the jars and that's it. I've been keeping them in the fridge because I didn't have a big pot that would work on my glass-top stove for actually canning them but I got one this weekend so we'll see how much trouble that step adds. With ~10 cukes, I can fill 3 small (12 oz?) jars which is perfect for a batch and coincidentally, that's just how many cukes I have ripe every day or so. My very picky 7-year old tasted a homemade pickle for the first time yesterday. He thought about it for a minute and then exclaimed "It tastes just a like a real one!" which I think he meant as a compliment? If you're on a low-sodium diet, the Ball mix may be way too salty for you. I like salty stuff but they're right on the borderline for me. That didn't stop me from eating a whole jar by myself last night without even realizing it! My friend swears by Mrs. Wage's kosher dill mix but I like the flexibility to do a smaller batch so I haven't tried that yet. For me, growing picklebush has been very easy and very forgiving. Mine have been through some abuse since I was just learning and started them in small pots, then moved them to bigger ones, didn't trellis them at first and added a trellis after the fact, overwater, underwater, GA heat, etc. They've thrived in spite of it all. I think disease is less of a concern when you're growing in containers because you start with "clean" soil but pests haven't been a problem for me. There are always lots of bugs around those plants but they haven't caused any problems yet. With cukes you can't forget to pick them because they grow so fast. A little baby may be only an inch long this morning and 4 inches tomorrow!

I can't think of any reason why you couldn't substitute zucchini for the cucumbers in Ellie Topp's recipe. Thet are often subbed for each other in pickling recipes and are actually a bit less risky simply because they contain less water to dilute the vinegar than cucumbers do. In addition, this is a straight undiluted vinegar recipe with additional lemon juice which is even more acidic than vinegar. And yes, you can also sub zucchini in the NCHFP B&B pickles recipe since it too is a straight vinegar recipe. Dave

I use apple cider vinegar, sugar or stevia and fresh or dry dill, salt and pepper to taste. My hubby hates cukes, but will eat them up this way. Also have you tried refrigerator pickles? A other one of our favorites