Gardening, canning, pickling and everything related
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Parksider Find someone that grows grapes and get some leaves from their plants. I never was very happy with my home canned dills until I found this trick to making good crunchy pickles. Put a grape leaf in the bottom of the jar, pack the jar with a recipe that sounds good and place another leaf on top, seal and process. I’ve opened jars that were 2 years old and they are still fresh and crunchy. Soggy pickles are the pits!

@Fat-Bob Well that is interesting. We have grapes & maybe we need to get serious about pickling again. We haven’t been really serious about them since the 80’s & before them we pickled up a lot of cucumbers, radishes, & even turnips & grew all our own too. We had a good hot bath method & a good refrigerator method (the crunchiest). However, other than a friend’s really good conversion recipe, we don’t do that many any more, but we need to try this.
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An 80-something year old lady told me about it and I was shocked how well it works. I’ve tried alum, pickling limes and nothing worked like grape leaves. I make a version of garlic dills that were just OK until I remembered what she told me. I think I could sell them now. LOL
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I will second or third or what the grape leaves. They make a huge difference in pickles. I put them in my hot dilly beans, all kinds of pickled vegetables.
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I agree . Never make pickles without them!!
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@Fat-Bob I forgot about the grape leaves for pickles. Some family friends used to make tons and tons of pickles when I was growing up, and they’d always give us some jars. They always threw a couple muscadine grape leaves in each jar (along with a handful of muscadine grapes, which were great!).
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I have no grape vines.
Do supermarket canned grape leave work? -
glen Steal them from the neighbors.
I don’t know if canned will work or not. I pick enough for a couple year when I , um, barrow them. Wash them and dry them with a paper towel then vacuum pack them and into the freezer. I’ve used three year old one before and couldn’t tell the difference in the final product. -
Thanks Bob, my brother in law has some vines and I will get some and vac pack
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Made some salsa verde today! The garden is really coming on!




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Tex_77 your tomatillas are bigger then my tomatoes. Looks like some good salsa.
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YooperDog You’d hate to see the size of my tomatoes.
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Tex_77 Yum! Yesterday I had Mulitas Chuleta en Chile Verde from ‘The Happy Wanderer’ Mexican restaurant…they were delicious!
I gave up on growing tomatillos years ago. I never had luck with them. My garden is really starting to produce. Squash, zucchini and cucumbers are coming on strong right now and it’s looking to be a bumper crop of tomatoes.
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Tex_77 Yum! Yesterday I had Mulitas Chuleta en Chile Verde from ‘The Happy Wanderer’ Mexican restaurant…they were delicious!
I gave up on growing tomatillos years ago. I never had luck with them. My garden is really starting to produce. Squash, zucchini and cucumbers are coming on strong right now and it’s looking to be a bumper crop of tomatoes.
Joe Hell I have no idea what you ate…lol. The key to growing them is you have to have at least plants. I have had one good year, one bad, and this year seems to be going ok.
My cucumbers are coming on strong as well, I’ve made a cucumber salsa as well as creamed cucumbers. I’ve also been grilling a lot of zucchini and yellow squash.
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Tex_77 Yum! Yesterday I had Mulitas Chuleta en Chile Verde from ‘The Happy Wanderer’ Mexican restaurant…they were delicious!
I gave up on growing tomatillos years ago. I never had luck with them. My garden is really starting to produce. Squash, zucchini and cucumbers are coming on strong right now and it’s looking to be a bumper crop of tomatoes.
Joe Hell I was not too smart this year. I decided to let my garden go to fallow for the first time in ages. I figured it needed a break & we were really busy with our best January ever. Then the Corona Business hit…
Margaret has really been on my case to get a Fall garden ready & thankfully, they usually do us better anyways. -
I am not sure why it sensored “Corona Business Hit”?
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Corona Business
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Hit, it hit. It hit everywhere. Still not sure why the computer system keeps censoring that!
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Hit, it hit. It hit everywhere. Still not sure why the computer system keeps censoring that!
calldoctoday Probably the admins fault. You know, he wears an orange hat.
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