mauirose, I usually pickle cucumber and green tomatos with conventional brine/vinegar method. I also use all houshold vinegar (5-6% acidity) with garlic pickles (takes more than a year, minimum.Five years and older is a delicacy, as garlic turns black, sweet and soft, with very little or no vinegar or garlic taste. also, middle easterners make all-vinegar pickles (no salt, no water)with chopped/diced vegetabkes:(eggplants, turnips,carrots, pearl onions(and/or white part of scallions), cauliflower, tiny cucumbers, celery-heart, parsley, mint, tarragon, cilantro, shallots(chopped), garlic (chopped) tiny green chilies (chopped)if you like it spicy). Of the above, you have to patially cook the following: carrots, turnips, celery,egplants(baked at 350F for 30-45minutes), garlics(chopped). You add then your favorit pickling spices(ground) Unlike cucumber pickles all ingredient are eaten and nothing can be separated. So do not add things like bay leaves, rosemary. This picke is eaten at small amounts with dinner. You you may sweeten it a bit, if you want. Actually this is a "SOUR" not a pickle. Talking about sour, you may also add cabbage(chopped, partially cooked)

I don't have an answer for you, but lemon grass is very easy to grow as a container plant if you use a lot of it. Just buy one piece from the market, put it in water and when it gets roots, put it into a pot. It multiplies like mad. I planted one shoot outside last year and this year it is so big I had to dig out several shoots so it wouldn't shade things. I wish you were close, I'd give you some of the rooted shoots I have. Galangal is easy to grow in containers too.

Plant it so that the bottom of the bulb is at the soil level and the roots are below root level. Don't bury it deep like you do tomatoes. It will put out new shoots from the base of the bulb at the root line and spread like that. It will do fine in a pot. I've had some in 12 inch pots for 6 years now. They could probably be divided and root pruned every year, but I do it every other year. They become root bound and super thirsty otherwise. In the fall, you ought to have a nice cluster of shoots. When you divide it next year, all the shoots that fall off can either be used culinarily or to make new plants from. If you divide it right, there will be roots on the shoots. Even if they look stiff like ramen noodles, they should be viable if the leaves are green. You can either top the leaves to about 4 or 6 inches or leave them long and whole. When I divide, I give them a haircut to about 6 inches of green and remove all the dry brown leaves and discard them. I use a little serrated knife and hack into the cluster of bulbs and roots and tease them apart as carefully as possible. I cut the bottom half of the root ball off and discard. Once you see the ball, you should be able to tell where to cut. I experimented with them one year and it turned out all I needed was the stub of a bulb just above the root line to grow a new plant from. They're pretty amazingly easy to root and grow. I've left one pot outside this year on my covered porch and there is still green in it. The rest are inside. They don't really grow much inside over winter, but they do drink a lot of water. The leaves curl a little when they really need a drink. If you get one or more rooted and put it in the ground outside, it will do a lot better than it will in a pot. So many more shoots and they will be a little larger than in the pot as well. Dig up before frost and separate and prepare. I let mine dry when I did that and use them for tea and flavoring rice and a number of other things. The whole leaf is flavorful for tea so I keep it all to use. My shoots are never as large as I see at the store, but I can't grow them in the ground all year long here either, so I don't mind. I always keep some potted as my mother plant and am willing to experiment with some of the others in the ground or otherwise. I have 4 - 12 inch pots inside right now. Chris - Upstate SC

Thanks. Not superb growing conditions for lemongrass, but still workable. Your days are shortening now so dieback is expected - this is the time when mature stalks would develop seeds and the leaves would brown off anyway. The dieback will happen quicker on immature plants. Give it the autumn to establish the root base; it will likely die back further and grow slowly up top but once its roots are established and the weather warms up it should come back nicely. By the end of spring you will have a pretty robust plant as long as you keep up with its fertilising and watering needs.