If you check the website frequently, you probably noticed several pickle recipes in the past week or two. The Rural Sprout crew might be slightly obsessed with quick pickles (sometimes referred to as refrigerator pickles.) But can you blame us?

Quick pickles are, well, quick to make.

And they’re ready to eat within days.

There’s no canning equipment necessary and no steaming up the kitchen.

You can make one jar at a time instead of needing a bushel of whatever vegetable you want to pickle.

And they’re crazy crunchy.

Eating pickled and fermented vegetables is my favorite way to get my 3-5 servings a day in the wintertime. Vinegar, salt and spices do magical things to humble vegetables. If you’ve never made pickles before, our many quick pickle recipes are a great place to start. 

It's a big part of late-summer garden chores. What are you putting up this year? Do you have a trusty Ball Blue book you refer to or a treasured family recipe you use time and again? Are you trying any new recipes?

As a child, I remember that canned food was always good, if not a little boring. I grew up being nourished by food that came out of shining mason jars, whether at my father’s table or either grandmother’s table.  

These days much of what I can goes beyond a basic recipe to prevent food spoilage. Like the brandied ginger plum chutney I’ll be canning this week. (Yes, the recipe will follow.) 

I’m always looking for that little extra something to take a good recipe and make it great. Judging by the incredible number of canning recipes on the internet these days, I’m not the only one.

We freeze a lot of produce too.

The canners get all the love this time of year, but those of us who prefer to freeze our veg are busy, too.  

It’s usually about this time each summer, toward the end of August, that I’m just over it all. Once I’m done blanching and freezing yet another batch of green beans, I think, “I don’t even want to look at another green bean, let alone eat any of them.”

Right about now, I’m feeling very much the kitchen drudge these late summer days.

Luckily this grumpy attitude evaporates the moment that first frost hits and our fresh veggies are done for the year. Suddenly, all those rows of jars and vacuum-sealed bags are the most beautiful things in the world.

For any of our readers who need a little encouragement to finish strong through the end of the season – you can do it! 

Just a few more batches of tomato sauce to go! Believe it or not, there will come a not-so-distant day in the future when you will miss all those zucchini on your counter. Fight with the vacuum sealer for a good seal just one more time. You got this!