I love refrigerator pickles

I made my first batch of refrigerator pickles today. They are the reason I plant cucumbers at all. I used this cute little vintage crock that just wouldn't sell on eBay. I decided to keep it since it is so perfect for my pickles. This batch is made with a cup of apple cider vinegar, 1/3 cup sugar, 1 tsp pickling salt, 2 chopped cloves garlic and some celery seed. It seems I change recipes every year trying to reach pickle nirvana -- I like them a little sweet, a little garlicky and a little hot. I'll try adding red pepper flakes to the next batch.

Unfortunately the pickles aren't made with my cucumbers. I swapped some garlic and sugar snaps with my neighbor for 2 cucumbers, a yellow squash and a cabbage from her garden. It is nice to have a gardening neighbor to trade varieties with. I had to pull out half my cucumbers today -- they had been looking so good -- then boom wilted leaves. Cucumber blight. Apparently there is no way to save them, just pull out the plant and dispose of it, before all the plants are infected. It's carried by that little striped Cucumber beetle. Hopefully it won't get all my plants. It got them last year, but I did move them to the other side of the garden this year. Oh well. I'll just have to hope Nola has a banner crop.