Pickling Kit
May 15, 2024
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Pickling Cucumbers: Bipakoombens(an)
- How to grow cucumbers
- Fresh cucumbers and cucumber pickles
- Michigan Fresh: Using, Storing, and Preserving Cucumber Pickles
- Miijim Card: Bipakoombens(an)
Dill: Zhiiwisijigaans-apaabowewin
- It's not too late to add herbs to your summer garden
- Native Plant Facts: Dill
- Miijim Card: Zhiiwisijigaans-apaabowewin
Onion: Zhigaagawanzh(iig)
Green Beans: Mashkodesimin(ag)
Beets: Miskokaadaak
Other Resources
Tips and Tricks
- One way to think about these plants is in terms of cool season and warm season. Some plants we grow in our gardens prefer warmer temperatures and warmer soil to grow. Cucumbers are an example of warm season plants, which is one of the reasons why they are often started indoors late in the winter to get a jump start on the season.
- Onion and dill are examples of cool season plants, which means you can grow them as early as you can outdoors to get them comfortable in the soil as it naturally warms with the season.
- Dill can also be grown indoors, like in a window sill.
- Onions will want to be planted as early in the season as possible so they have the full time to grow. Onions can even tolerate a little frost.
- Dill and cucumbers don't like to be transplanted or have their root system disturbed. Dill has a taproot that extends down, and is a great plant to start from seed if needed.
- Cucumbers can also be started as seeds, but do fine as transplants; they just require a little gentler of a touch when planting into the ground or a larger container. If you are growing cucumbers from seeds, one option would be to start them in compostable pots rather than plastic, so you can place it entirely in the ground so as to not disturb the roots.
- Cucumbers do best planted in 6-inch mounds; if starting from seed, bury 3-4 seeds 1-inch deep.
- Cucumbers may "stall out" temporarily after transplanting, where you may not see a lot of new growth at first. Give them a little time, ensure they get enough water, and in a few weeks you'll notice some new growth!
- Once the weather gets warmer, the dill will start to flower. One trick can be to stagger your planting of the dill so that you have different waves of dill harvesting available once your cucumbers are ready to be pickled.
- To stagger plant your dill, plant more every few weeks to ensure you have it fresh for the entire season.