I have this boyfriend and he has this garden. In Spring I helped him plant a few peppers, much basil, three tomatoes and a variety of misc herbs. And a single cucumber plant that got eaten by birds within 12 hours. He replanted with another cucumber plant and after water and sunlight, here’s what happened:

That’s one plant that overtook most of this part of the world. We’ve gotten lots of basil out of that garden and a few chiles and peppers, but mostly it’s been cucumbers. We had a long, hot (Over 100 for over 2 months) summer and the only production we got was cucumbers. Lots and lots of cucumbers. That vine is producing about 4 Armenian Cucumbers a day and has for 2 months. ::sigh::

He’s mostly been giving them away to local restaurants, friends and unsuspecting strangers. At his part time job one day he set a big sack of them by the cash register with a sign that said, “Free.” It may as well have been a white flag.

Though, occasionally they’re cute.

This weekend I decided that I would can cucmbers into pickles, just as generations of women before me had done. I borrowed a processing pot, bought a 12-pack of quart jars and got to canning.

I mean “canning.”

I intended to document and blog it but was glad things didn’t work out that way. I don’t need record of any more failure in my life. Still, I gave it a whirl…

On the left you have me discovering that the giant pot I borrowed was suited for pints and not quarts. On the right you have me placing the jars up on a shelf where they’ll likely only be able to sit until sundown. Then into the fridge they go because they didn’t process correctly. Again, I’d like to remind you of The Video.