A Pickling Adventure

Our garden has produced approximately 70+ cucumbers this summer. What started out as two cucumber bushes has spread and grown in crazy fashion. You can only eat so many cucumbers! Will peels and eats them like a banana. Many nights we slice them, place them in vinegar/water with salt/pepper as a tasty side dish.
Grandma's suggestion - make pickles - and that's just what we did!
I bought a canning kit, 8 jars, a pickle packaged mix, and vinegar - we were ready!

We decided to attempt this adventure at Grandma's (growing up on a farm, she had seen this done dozens of times, but never attempted it herself). I tagged along Clayton for some time with my Big Boy, and he's actually quite a bit of help.

I left Clayton to slicing cucumbers while Grandma and I read up on the exact instructions.



Clayton was also able to pack the cucumber slices into the jars.





We placed the mix, vinegar, and sugar onto the stove to bring to a boil. Again, Clayton wanted to help stir the mix.



We then poured the hot mixture over the cucumbers in the jars (this was a Mommy job).



Headed the lids & rims on the stove, we then placed them on top of the jars.
After placing all jars into the canning rack, we placed the rack into the canner.



The final product! Our first batch of bread and butter pickles!



What's next - dill pickles, jams - who knows???