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Writer's pictureLaura Wayte

Pickle-Making Day

There's more to farming than farming! You also need to learn how to store your crop!



It is the time of year when gardeners, cooks and farmers put food aside for eating later in the season. Our students spent an evening making cucumber and jalapeno pickles recently.


In these photos you can see Rose, Summer and Bhagya cutting the vegetables, arranging them in the jars with salt, spices and vinegar, and then processing the jars in a water bath.


Here are some recipes to try yourself from the Oregon State University Extension Service. Click on the title to read the recipe in-full, along with all the extremely important safety instructions:


(Yield: 9 pints)

  • 4 pounds hot, long red, green or yellow peppers (Hungarian, banana, green or yellow)

  • 3 pounds sweet red and green peppers, mixed

  • 5 cups vinegar (5% acidity)

  • 1 cup water

  • 4 teaspoons canning or pickling salt

  • 2 tablespoon sugar

  • 2 cloves garlic

  1. Wash peppers. Quarter large peppers; if small peppers are left whole, slash 2–4 slits in each. Caution: Wear gloves when handling hot peppers.

  2. Peel peppers as outlined above

  3. Flatten small peppers

  4. Fill jars with peppers, leaving ½ inch headspace

  5. Combine other ingredients, heat to boiling, and simmer 10 minutes

  6. Remove garlic. Pour hot solution over peppers, leaving ½ inch headspace

  7. Adjust lids and process half pints and pints for 10 minutes in boiling water canner. After processing, take canner off heat. Remove lid. Wait 5 minutes before removing jars.



(Yield: 6 to 7 pints or 3 to 4 quarts)

  • 4 pounds pickling cucumbers (4-inch)

  • 3 cups water

  • 3 cups vinegar (5% acidity)

  • ¼ cup pickling salt

  • 14 garlic cloves, split

  • 14 heads fresh dill

  • 28 peppercorns

  • 2 teaspoons hot red pepper flakes (optional)


  1. Wash cucumbers. Cut 1⁄16 inch off blossom end but leave ¼ inch of stem on the other end. Cut in half lengthwise.

  2. Heat salt, vinegar, and water to boiling.

  3. Pack cucumbers into hot pint or quart jars, adding 4 garlic halves, 2 heads dill, and 4 peppercorns per jar.

  4. Add ¼ teaspoon hot red pepper flakes per pint, if desired.

  5. Pour hot vinegar solution over cucumbers leaving ½ inch headspace.

  6. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace, if needed. Wipe rims and process as follows or use the lower-temperature pasteurization treatment described on page

  7. Raw Pack Processing Times for Quick Kosher Dills at 0-1000 ft elevation: 10 minutes for pints; 15 minutes for quarts


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