Sorry, nothing I know of. They'll keep a few days in the fridge, of course, but after that -- well, either you can make really tiny batches, or chalk it up to experience and plant more plants in future years.

I've got 6 hills of 2 plants each, so I should be getting more in the future. This is the first time we're growing cucumbers at all.

I read somewhere on here recently that you could make keep a batch of brine in the fridge, then just heat it as you need a make a quart or two of pickles at a time. That is what I am going to do tonight. I have about three quarts of pickles ready to go. They've been in the fridge for two days now and I am really pushing it!!

If you pick the small cucumbers, wash off the dirt, brush the spines and blossom off, and put them in a covered dish/tub of cold water in the fridge, they'll stay very crispy for several days.

The summers we do a lot of cucumber pickles, I'll pick and pickle every 4 or 5 days, and always end up with a few too many. This will save them until the next batch.

I did a post awhile back regarding the same thing. Digdirt gave a good suggestion. Search *single pickle recipe* I did this and put 7 pints in the fridge. Family loved them, ate them so fast I didn't have to worry about them going bad! I had put the pickles in the fridge until I had enough to work with so I soaked them in ice water while I was making the brine (Ms. Wages w/ fresh dill and pepper flakes) Quick, easy and great tasting.

If you plan to make continual batches of pickles, I suggest that you plant at least a dozen or more plants. More plants means more cukes in each picked batch. Mine go from picking at 6am, to canning or fermenting within two hours. You can't get fresher than that! For the Mrs. Wages, don't forget the GARLIC!! I also add hole seed heads to my dills and use the same pickle mix for the salt brine fermented half sours. Ball pickle mixes are not as tasty and some have added sugar, which, for true dills, isn't usual.

I put them in cold water, covered with saran wrap & put in the fridge. Are they supposed to float? And I found 1 hiding in the leaves that is normal size :)

I just made some sour pickles today, using some cukes that had been in my fridge for a few days. I love very sour pickles using just vinegar, mustard, salt and sugar. They tend to be kinda soft when they are done working anyway so I don't think the older cukes will matter much. Next year I'm also planting WAY more plants. I usually do but this year I wanted to keep things small. I'm working on some relish now, grating and chopping cukes and zukes. Lori

To reduce softening, add that Pickle Crisp or food grade calcium chloride to each jar. Adding sugar to a sour pickle? Isn't that counterproductive? For the relish, chopped onions also make it taste good. For sour pickles, a higher than 5% vinegar is needed, and you can increase the acid a little by adding citric acid. Sours also have tumeric added, as well as a little alum, for the pucker.