Spicy Dill Pickles with Peppers and Garlic

Yesterday I made my second batch of pickles for the year. I'm getting a lot of pickling cucumbers from the garden right now. This time I added some garlic cloves, spices, and pepper strips to each jar, including a sliced whole small hot green pepper. I wound up with a total of 27 quarts' worth, and it took most of the day. I haven't tasted them yet, but they look pretty good. Sheba (aka "Boo-Boo") investigated the jars before I stored them away. (click pictures to enlarge)

More red cabbage salad

 

We ate up the first batch of cole slaw pretty quickly.

With the other half of the giant red cabbage from the garden, I made a sort of Mexican style vinaigrette slaw and added black beans, corn, cilantro, red peppers, onions (including their scallion tops), and chipotle sauce.

Red Cole Slaw and first Green Beans

I cut the largest head of red cabbage from my vegetable garden and made cole slaw. Also from the garden I added to it shredded carrot, chopped kale, and red onion. A touch of chopped store bought yellow pepper added some pretty yellow color. I made the slaw dressing with mayo, yogurt, mustard, lemon juice, vinegar, salt, black pepper, celery seed, and dill.
That head of cabbage was about the size of a volleyball, and only half of it made a BIG bowl of cole slaw. Now I'll have to decide what to do with the other half. Then there are three more cabbages growing... but happily they are maturing a various rates so I'll be able to harvest them over the next month or so. 

I also picked the first batch of tender green beans.  We'll have them steamed and buttered, alongside wild rice for dinner tonight...
The Vidalia, red, and white onions will need to be pulled and dried for storage soon- their tops are flopping over, but are still green.  When the tops begin to turn yellow the onions have stopped growing and should be harvested. 
(click photos to enlarge)

Dill Pickles

Today i made my first batch of pickles for the year- dill spears. I picked a whole sinkful of pickling cukes and they made about 14 quarts' worth of dill pickle spears. Used up the 12 quart jars I had pretty quickly, and some extra pint jars too.

Brian likes dill spears, I prefer sweet pickles, so next I'll make a batch of sweet chunk pickles for me. After that, I will need to make some cole slaw from the big heads of red cabbage growing in the garden.

My cucumber vines look like they'll be giving me 2 or 3 more batches for pickles equal in size to this one, so I'll need to buy more quart jars and a couple more gallons of vinegar. My bees are doing a great job pollinating the cucumber blossoms- they are buzzing all over them all day long.

A new Queen

I managed to get a couple of quick pictures of the new queen honeybee whom I've named "Calico". She came from a queen cell that I swiped from my Old Queen's hive to a new small 5-frame hive 'nuc' with. She emerged in her new nuc, took her mating flight last month, and has been laying wonderfully. I've been taking out frames of her eggs to give to my other hives now, for them to make new queens from as well. She seems like a winner, and it was hard to get a photo of her because she kept running so fast to the other side of the frame I was holding up for the photo- she was trying to get away from the bright sun. She's quite a golden beauty!

(click on the photos and you'll see them bigger)