It has begun.

We went out to the garden on Sunday to see the amount of damage that two weeks of rain had done. All I have to say is that weed is a four letter word.

So is deer.

But the cucumbers, like the weeds, loved all the rain. When we got home, the cukes were washed and sorted according to size. Large to be sliced or spears, medium to be packed whole, and small to be packed into the interstitial spaces. The dill wasn't quite ready yet and so I had to resort to dry dill seed.
All together it worked out to 26 jars. Some are 1.5 liters, some are quarts. All I know is that is a lot of pickles. And that is just the beginning.

You are suppose to leave them to cool undisturbed for 24 hours. And imagine my surprise when I looked at the jars and some of them had this funny layer of suspended dill seeds!

We biked to the garden to do the picking and then had to go pick up some vinegar and salt to do the pickling and about 15 minutes after we were all back home, the skies opened up the rain came down. The rain is bouncing about 6 inches off the ground. Am I ever glad that we were not biking in that!

The other thing that we picked was basil. We make a premix for pesto that then gets tossed in the freezer. Four cups of packed basil leaves, one cup of olive oil, buzzed in the food processor then put in plastic containers. When we want pesto in the winter, we thaw a tub, toss it and the rest of the ingredients into the food processor and voila! Supper!
The kids helped with the plucking of the leaves.

Bill did the washing of the leaves,


And I did the buzzing and packing of the finished premix. So far, we have four tubs in the freezer. And the basil doesn't look like the it has had anything picked at all.