I definitely need some calcium chloride for the next round of pickles. These are from 06 so it's not too surprising that they're mushy! I cut my 2008 bread and butter pickles into thicker slices and ended up with a texture more to my liking. So far I've pureed one jar of them and mixed with catsup and some additional spices to make sloppy joes. They were okay but a *little* on the "weird" side. My younger son said, "Hey, what's this whitish-greenish seed looking thing??" (I think it was a mustard seed!) and my elder son said, "I don't know, but I smell pickles!" LOL! Thanks for all the suggestions for ways to use these. The peas, pickles, and cheese salad sounds kind of, how shall I say....yucky! :-D I appreciate the idea, however, and just might find myself intrigued enough to try it some day! I don't really do macaroni salad, but potato salad is a thought, as are the deviled eggs. I have chopped up sweet pickles and put them into tuna salad in the past, so that could be another option. I've never eaten sweet pickles on a green salad--could be interesting! The tip about pickling the beets with the leftover brine sounds good, since I also have a couple pints of home canned beets lurking in the closet!

I have tried baking soda with little effect a mix of ascorbic acid and water may also help a little. The mildew happens rapidly and once you see a single yellow leaf, it has begun. I spray with a fungicide called Serenade, which works quite well. Its done every 7 days during the bearing of the cukes. Bees love the blossoms and I usually have many bees busy all day long. I go out and pick at sunrise as its a little cooler and easy to find them on a vertical trellis. The honey bees must be local as they are busy all day and the area sounds like a huge bee hive. They usually are just fine even if I am out there picking right next to them, as they are not very aggressive. I posted links above to web site for pickling cucumbers, and if you don't know how to get these links copied to an internet browser, just simply point at an end or start of the HTML line (above), and hold down the left mouse button and move to the left or right to highlight the whole line. Once highlighted, press the control key down while you then press the C key. Open a new browser page and remove the text at the window at the top. Or point to what text is there, and then its highlighted, press the delete key. Position the mouse pointer in that window while you hold the control key down and presk V to paste the previously copied text. Press enter. Then it will show you the web page link. I made it easier to show you the Jung pickling cucumber seed assortment. Here is a link that might be useful: Jung Seed- pickling cukes

Hello! This is my first time canning cucumbers to make pickles. I followed one recipe which told me to soak the cuces in salt water for up to seven days in the fridge before canning. I soaked them for maybe about 15 hours and then canned some. However, when I took them out of the cold salt water they were bloated and softer than when I put them in there! I am using field cucumbers from my garden (not dill pickle cucumbers) and I had also cut off both ends of the cucumber before soaking them (as the recipe suggested). I know I only need to cut off the blossom end but wasn't sure which was which so just cut off both ends. I would think that cutting off the end(s) would leave the cucumber open for more salt water to get inside (and hence the waterlogged result I got). But reading online a bit I see that the idea is to get the salt into the cucumber so as to draw out the liquid - moisture. I think that my result was just the opposite. I washed them off and cut them into spears and canned them. They sure seemed mushy though. I still have 6 medium/ big cucumbers salt soaked but now washed sitting in a collander in my fridge. Might can them or may just compost them....or ??? A shame really bcs straight out of the ground they are really yummy. I watered regularilly and we had a sunny summer. I just cant eat so many of them raw! I am thinking next time just to skip the salt water brine and pickle them straight from the garden. Thoughts and ideas welcome please and thanks :) Jade in Vancouver Island,BC, Canada. Pacific Northwest.

This is an old thread but if anyone wants the flavor of real salt cured cucumber pickles, I found a listing by googling the subject. It was a patent application if I recall. What the auther tried based on a chemists perspective was that grain alcohol can be substitured molecule for molecule for salt in the curing process. He gave the formulas to use and I followed them and made a plastic crock full of wonderful dill pickles in my spare bathtub. It takes almost a month to cure fully and the pickles are nice and sour just like real deli dill and like the salt pickles my mother and father used to make in the 1930s and 49s. Sorry but I only made them once but you can find the reference by googling like I did. And no you can't drink the brine, the alcohol is all used up in the process and the brine tastes sour and full of dill.