Picking and preserving homegrown cucumbers

Our two outdoor cucumber plants have been doing really well this year in the garden. We've been blessed with a fantastic crop so far and the plants are still giving. 

This particular cucumber has a prickly exterior so when used in salads we peel them. What we like to use these cucumbers for mostly is pickling. We pickling and preserve as many of these as possible to use as gherkins throughout the year. 

We love gherkins in salads, burgers and other meals and noticed that the price of them has doubled in recent months. Where before we could get a jar for 65p they are now double that if not more per jar. I've always wanted to preserve our own but this is the first years I've had such successful plants to enable me to do so. 

There are lots of different pickling recipes in books and online. Some are suitable for long term preserving and some only suitable for short term and must be stored in the refrigerator. I use a combination of both. When making the longer term ones (I say long term, they will really only last us through the winter until the next crop the following year) if the jar does not correctly seal I will use them as refrigerator ones pickles instead. 

I use mainly old jars from sauces and products we've purchased in store over the years. I try to avoid buying jars when I can. There are of course some things I buy new jars for but it makes sense to save money where I can. I'm always careful to check the jars for damage and the lids to ensure they seal correctly and safely for the longer term storage. The last thing I want to do it make my family poorly but not safely preserving our homegrown produce. 

You can watch me pickling some homegrown cucumbers in the YouTube video below