The Bee Buzz

I am a recovering bee hater. Being stung over 10 times as a child will create that fear and hatred. However, as an adult gardener I see their role and importance everyday in my yard. Without them, I would not be harvesting the bounty that I have!

I'm sure you have all heard about the recent plight of the honeybees. The decline of them recently is very real and scientists still are not sure why. Some attribute it to colony-collapse disorder, mites,pesticides, or environmental changes (duh!) but they really do not know why.

In Sunset Magazine this month, there is an article by Allison Arieff about a San Francisco State University associate professor of biology named Gretchen LeBuhn who is trying to get to the bottom of it all. She noticed that this decline in bees was affecting her own garden. The productivity of her veggies has declined as well and thought that she could enlist the help of fellow gardeners in gathering research. Enter "The Great Sunflower Project" http://www.greatsunflower.org/. Through this project, she will send you sunflower seeds for you to plant. When they grow, observe your bee situation and report back to her. She now has about 55,000 participants and it is continuing to grow.

Through this research she is able to track bee populations all over the country. I am hoping, through this project, solutions will be found so that our great pollinators do not fly (or die) away. Join her project and help the bees!

In a pickle...

The other day I was minding my own business, pulling weeds in my garden, and picking tomatoes (since they are never ending it seems). I went to turn off the water to the hose and spotted this monstrous cuke hiding amongst the squash and watermelon leaves. Note the fork next to it to show you scale. It is so large that I actually laughed out loud...I think I may have blushed also. I had never even seen it growing in there- only the small, oddly misshapen ones you can see in the picture. This cucumber appears to have a business of it's own.

Since I am currently OBSESSED with canning, I decided to make pickles. These are not the type of pickles that most recipes call for though- they are Japanese cucumbers. After some cookbook and computer research, I found a couple of recipes that looked good and kind of merged them into my own. Here's what I did:

-I hacked the cucumbers into spears that would fit into the jars I have.

-I put them and chunkily chopped red onion into a large pot filled with salted water (called a brine). The brine is supposed to suck the water out of the cukes so that they are crunchy.

-I put the pot with everything in my fridge for about 24 hours.

-The next day, I took the speared cukes and red onion out of the brine and let them dry out a bit on some clean towels.

-While they dried, I mixed rice vinegar (3 cups), water (2 cups), 4 dried red chilies (whole), 2 cinnamon sticks, and about 12 black peppercorns in a non-reactive bowl (not metal). I used a ceramic bowl.

-I boiled water in another pan and set this ceramic bowl in it to heat the pickling juice.

-I put the cucumber spears and red onion into sterilized canning jars with some garlic cloves, poured the vinegar mixture to within 1/2 in. of the top, closed the jars, and brought them to a boil for about 15-20 minutes. Then take them out of the water to cool. Wait to hear the pops so you know that they have sealed! Mine popped!

Now, all the recipes say to let them sit for about a week until eating- so I haven't actually eaten them yet. That's my disclaimer. For all I know, they could taste like crap. However, they smelled good and look quite pretty in the jars. After I taste them next week, I'll let you know. If they do taste bad, then I will have some pretty jars to display won't I?