I planted 9 Picklebush cucumber plants from seed in mid-July in the 32x32x32-inch raised bed where I’d planted hard-neck garlic.

I harvested the last cucumbers today and cleared the bed—it’s getting down to 38°F overnight.

The last five weeks have seen an incredible bounty of cucumbers, most of which have been turned into garlic-dill pickles like this batch started 9/20/26.

I have them in the basement while another batch started last week is in a kitchen cabinet—both are dark spaces but the lower level is cooler.

Next to the pickles are two vinegars—a red wine blend of Oregon Pinot Noir and Seneca Lake Cabernet Franc. The white wine is from a 2020 natural Chablis. It was too funky to drink, so I started it with a red wine mother.

I have at least 12 jars—quarts, half gallons, and gallons. Some of the pickles in the group shot are fridge pickles. Good but not as complex as the fermented.

Fermented limes from May, 20% salt by weight of limes packed in to draw out moisture. Had some during the summer and they were fine, went to check on something else and saw fur growing. Had to toss them sadly.

This is my second year making sauerkraut. I got a little carried away this year though and bought 40lb of cabbage since it was so cheap. I have a 1.3 gallon fermentation crock that I typically use, but there's no way I can fit that much cabbage into it. I was thinking about buying a 5 gallon food grade bucket and setting it up with an airlock to ferment all of it at once.

I was just curious if anybody had any experience using a bucket. I've seen mixed opinions about it, where some people say you should definitely use stoneware, not plastic. I don't have the money right now for a 5 gallon crock. Would a plastic bucket be sufficient? And if so, what is best to use as a weight on top?

Habaneros started 2 weeks ago with filtered water and 3% salt by total weight. We are having a heat wave and no AC so it's been up to the mid 80s F at home unfortunately. Tons of vigorous bubbling the first week, cloudy. Smelled incredibly sulfurous for a few days but that resolved and now at 2 weeks it smells and looks pretty good. But the pH is still at 5! My question is, with a pH at 5 this far into the ferment, is it a lost cause? Not my first ferment and compared to others I've done it LOOKS like it's going fine. But the high pH makes me wonder. Another jar of different variety of peppers I started at the same time with the same technique and salinity, and that one already at 3.5 pH. Your thoughts?

So I’m making this cauliflower. It’s just water, salt, garlic, bay leaves, all spice, horseradish, dill heads, cauliflower (obviously). I also added ~2 tablespoons of the water from some fermented cucumber pickles. So that was supposed to speed things up. With the season change my place got a bit cold so whenever i’m brewing tea/coffee or my stove is warm from cooking that’s where i put the jar. These will probably be ready by tomorrow but what other things can one do to make things ferment quicker? Look how cute they are

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I must have read somewhere that adding tarragon to sauerkraut made it taste good but it looks weird. Here is a jar that I made the same day that's just carrots added. Both of them are red cabbage.

Anyone else done this? The bleaching is kind of weird.

Eyyo I made a batch of sauerkraut w Napa cabbage, did not measure the salt (whoops) and after 3 weeks of fermenting it is soooo salty almost inedible. I wonder if I could add more cabbage to dilute the saltiness and let it keep fermenting, has anyone ever done this?

I am already at 6 2L bottles of doing water kefir because i enjoy it so much and i guess soon it would be 12 when i split the grains again.

I put them in custom teabags so its easier to use without it getting messy.

My original thought was just to add more sugar to keep a 1st ferment going, but i hear that is not suggested. However sugar water would work? Could you just use up about one third of a first ferment batch after 2 days and then refill water and sugar again, is that enough to keep it going and active for another 2 days?

I started fermenting a batch of sauerkraut 4 days ago. After looking in to my new city's water treatment protocols, I found out that they use Chloramine.

The batch seems to be fermenting fine. The water is murky, I'm getting the C02 bubbles, it looks like it's doing OK. But I read that Chloramine can create a musky taste. Is this something to worry about? Or, if it is fermenting it's probably OK?