Italian Pickles

I mentioned yesterday that I'm kinda crazy for pickles, and what do ya know, I woke up today with an urge to pickle. Unfortunately, the cucumbers aren't ready yet, so I decided to branch out and just pickle whatever was ready in the garden. I harvested carrots, zucchini and radishes, and settled on an Italian flavour base of garlic, basil and lemon.

I've read enough about canning to know that it's really important to get the right level acidity to kill bacteria, so I didn't want to just make up my own recipe. I used the recipe for garlic dills that I mentioned yesterday, substituting in my chosen veggies and flavourings, but keeping the amount of water, vinegar and salt the same. It will be a month before I can say how they taste, but they look great.

Potatoes & Carrots

Just planted 2 rows of the carrots in the main garden bed. I was reading Jamie at Home earlier, and he suggests planting batches of carrots in 2 week intervals to ensure carrots all summer long. That seems sensible to me, so I think I'm going to do that.

But what I'm really excited about are the potatoes that I planted yesterday. It never would have occurred to me to grow my own potatoes, but I read somewhere that you can get a huge yield from planting just a few seeding potatoes. I also love the idea of just reaching into the potato bucket for a spud whenever I need one. I can't wait to make some fries and dip them into Jamie's homemade ketchup. There are some pretty cool varieties of potatoes out there (Russian Blue anyone?), but we've got a pretty basic red-skinned potato called Norlands which is supposed to be quite tasty. Eagle Creek Seed Potatoes in Alberta has an amazing selection, and if the Norlands work out this year, I'll probably order something really cool from them next year.

I'm growing the potatoes in buckets w/ holes drilled in the bottom b/c I read in a veggie garden blog that it's a great way to reduce the chance of the spuds getting a blight. It's also simple, b/c as the potatoes grow up, you just keep covering with compost. I've got 7 buckets going on the deck outside my bedroom, as it gets full sun and I read that potatoes love the sun.