Original email:

[This message originated at GardenWeb]

Greetings from Sunny Florida,

I enjoy reading all your posts on the Harvest forum on GardenWed and know that you are a man of experience. I'm in my sixties and not new to gardening, but new to vegetable gardening. My husband and I are planting our first vegetable garden in a couple of weeks using square foot gardening in raised beds. We will be trellising our cucumbers growing Poinsett 76, a recommended variety for Florida. My questions to you; can this variety of cucumber be used for making Bread & Butter Pickles? If not, should I be growing a pickling variety, and if so, what do you suggest? I'm diabetic and look forward to making my own pickles using Splenda. Would you please share your recipe for your B&B pickles? You mentioned Pickle Crisp from Ball; our local grocery has the packages reduced to .99, should I be stocking up on this? Thank you for any help you can give, Mary

My reply:

Hello,

I will also post this question and reply on the Garden Web site, for all to read..

Yes, do stock up on that Pickle Crisp!!. It was dropped the beginning of last year and, no one else seem to stock it. At 99 cents a box, that's a great price too!! There are foil packets inside, that separate the total amount. Being as it is, it loves to absorb water and humidity very fast. I believe there is about 2 to 4 teaspoons of the PC in each foil packet. I buy it from Bulk Foods and their product is a bit bigger as to the granular size, so I use slightly more of that. as to gardening, I am not familiar with the cuke type you mention, but if it is for pickling and says that on the seed packets, it may be OK. I usually plant a few types of pickling cukes, and being on a warmer climate, you can usually start in April, then in July again. I usually have about 15-20 plants each year and love making the half sour dills. Sometimes, the very first cukes might taste very bitter. This can happen in the early stages of development and if you encounter any within the first few weeks of harvesting, I suggest that you taste a slice of each before you use it in a recipe. After a few weeks, that bitter cuke seems to go away and not return. I also grow my own dill as well as a big garlic type that grows well here (Music). That garlic type isn't suitable for hot weather, but there are several soft neck types that grow well in your warm climate. Other favorites are yellow wax bush beans and broccoli. I plant two kinds of broccoli, one for big heads, and one with smaller heads that seem to product many small florets. These should be planted and grown in cooler weather. My cuke supply is just one planting per summer and spraying is necessary to reduce downy and powdery mildew that seems to infect the leaves. Once they get white coloration, they usually die soon after. Cucumber beetles are a big carrier of these fungus and must also be controlled. I will spray Neem once in a while as well as having sticky traps with scent lures that attract many of these tiny cuke beetles. My cuke favorites are the National Pickler, County Fair, and Home Made. Here are some links to several types of pickling cukes:

http://www.jungseed.com/dp3.asp?c=12&SKU=02002

http://www.jungseed.com/dp3.asp?c=77&SKU=02050

http://www.jungseed.com/sp.asp?c=95

Bulk foods cost for calcium chloride:

http://www.bulkfoods.com/search_results.asp?txtsearchParamTxt=calcium+chloride&txtsearchParamCat=ALL&btnSearch.x=7&btnSearch.y=9&txtsearchParamType=ALL&iLevel=1&txtsearchParamMan=ALL&txtsearchParamVen=ALL&txtFromSearch=fromSearch

Some pickling cukes are a short bush type. For using Splenda, do NOT measure it cup for cup when the recipe called for so many cups of sugar. I have found that for some odd reason, vinegar intensifies the sweetening ability of Splenda, so very little is needed. For a 6 quart batch of B&B pickles, I use maybe a half to 1 cup, but always taste the brine prior to pouring into the sliced cukes that are packed in jars. Sorry, I don't really have a recipe for any of my pickles or other canned goods, I go by taste and usually avoid adding water to most pickling brines, except the half sours which need it. For the B&B pickles, I also slice onions, and the spices used are a little dill seed, whole mustard seed, and whole celery seed. I use a crinkle cutter that makes wavy cuts as opposed to smooth ones. Adding a few bits of dried sweet red pepper flakes gives each jar a bit of color. Be sure to use canning/pickling salt if you make from scratch. The B&B and a sweet mixed also like a half and half, distilled white, and apple cider vinegar. If you try the mixes from Mrs. Wages, you can also 'embellish' on their spices by adding more than what comes packaged with the mixes. They usually do not contain sugar, only spices and salt. For my half sour dills, they too get a Mrs. Wages dill mix first added to just water, then I also add fresh garlic and fresh dill seed heads (sprays) and dill leaves (weed). The seed heads are perfect when they are still green and swelled after they produce tiny flowers little bees love. Half sours ferment in a salt brine, as opposed to vinegar. I allow mine to bubble/ferment about 2-3 days, then add a tablespoon of white vinegar to half further fermenting, and place the jars in the fridge. They keep nice and crunchy for nearly a year. They even have a taste of acid like vinegar, but its actually mostly lactic acid that's produced at fermentation. I do cut off both end tips of my cukes and will usually have enough per day to pickle a half gallon at a time. If you are lower in picking quantity, refrigerate for only about 24 hours at most. After that, they tend to become soft and rubbery and lose that crisp they had when picked. If you just starting a garden, be it in the ground or a raised bed, be sure to get a good concise soil test done a few weeks prior to planting anything. You may find it needs things like potassium, iron, nitrogen, etc. NEVER use any chemical fertilizers in the garden like that blue crystals Miracle Grow. I like using things like seaweed meal, and kelp meal foliar sprays, as well as organic fertilizers. Every year I get a soil test done each spring by a lab and have gotten some interesting results. One year, the soil had virtually no iron, and another year was very low in nitrogen. When I see this, I add things like iron sulfate and lime (to bring up the soil pH after the acidic iron), and feather and fish meal for nitrogen.