Sweet and spicy pickles

What I would like is a recipe for sweet and spicy pickles. My husband and I were at a flea market in Abilene, Texas and bought a jar from a vendor. They were crisp and not too spicy. They have just a small amount of jalapeños in them. I have searched but can’t find a recipe that looks like it would work. So, I was hoping you might be able to help me out. My family really liked them and I hope to have enough cucumbers this year to make some.

Ken and Jackie Smith
Tuscola, Texas

What I do is make Bread and Butter pickles and add a few slices of jalapeño or other hot pepper. (Will likes Hungarian Wax.) This gives you a crispy sweet, yet spicy pepper. Try it and I think you’ll like them. (You can vary the amount of hotness with your likes. We like only a few slices where you may prefer more.) — Jackie

Planting potatoes

I would like to try potatoes in my garden for the first time next year. Do I have to buy special seed potatoes or can I plant some store bought if they develop eyes? We really like the small dutch yellow (Holland?) type. They roast really well with a little oil and seasoning.

Michael Lowery
Dekalb, Illinois

Yes, it’s a better idea to buy seed potatoes. Most store potatoes have been treated to prevent sprouting. Even when they do sprout, this spray sometimes interferes with those potatoes producing decent crops. Buy good seed potatoes, then save your own to use as seed potatoes the following years. You’ll be happier in the end. — Jackie

Planting fruit bushes

I want to add some more fruit bushes to my property without spending much. I’ve looked at some online nurseries for plants such as blueberries, raspberries, bush cherries, gooseberries, and grapes. I’ve seen on eBay people selling the seeds for those, and it’s much cheaper, and it would seem you’d get more plants out of it.

Have you ever grown these plants from seeds, and did you have good success? Or would it be better in the long run to just spend the extra money and get fewer plants from a nursery?

Donnie McIlwain
Lowman, New York

You’d be much better to buy a few of each one each year than to start them from seeds. In reality, it usually takes about 4 years before you get any fruit from your seedling berries. Ask around; maybe there’s a friend or neighbor who has raspberries or grapes you could get starts from. — Jackie

5 COMMENTS

  1. Oh my, I have never heard of bT! Now, I am more excited than ever, to plant more potatoes for next summer.
    AND….I can look forward to saving my grapes. The Japanese beetles have eaten all my grapes for 3 seasons! THANK YOU so much!!
    (and, Congratulations on the newest addition to your family!)

  2. Bev,

    I’m really not supposed to answer questions here; submit them to the blog. BUT I will, anyway. Why don’t you spray your potatoes with bT, such as Dipel, which is a natural organism that is lethal to leaf-eating insects but will not harm good “bugs”, birds, pets or you. It is quite effective and cheap, too.

    Jackie

  3. Seeds are not the best way to go with fruit, usually. They rarely come true to form. Most likely the quality will be between poor and mediocre. If you really want to try seeds, you can get them from fruits in the market, just as easily as you can get them from eBay.

    Blueberries and grapes are fairly easy to propagate. Raspberries, blackberries and black raspberries are trivially easy to propagate. You dig up a dormant plant, keeping as many hair roots as possible. You cut the thicker root sections into 4-6 inch sections, keeping track of which end is up. Plant each section with the up end pointed up, about an inch below the surface. When the weather breaks, you will have a new cane at each spot. My experience is that this first year cane will die the following winter, but 5-10 new canes shoot up from that location the following spring. Most brambles have roots which are 2-4 feet in length, so you can get quite a few new plants this way. Blueberries can be propagated easily through stem cuttings. It seems a little less sure to work, but I pruned my berries in late winter, dipped them in rooting hormone and stuck them in some well-drained, shaded ground. Out of the 10 or so, I got 2 plants, but one of those didn’t make it through its first winter. Grapes can be done through layering. In Spring, you just bury the a small section of vine, leaving the growing end out of the ground and the other end attached to the main plant. Put a hand sized rock over the buried section. The following spring, cut the connection from the main plant. Anything that rooted will have new growth that year.

  4. Last summer, I planted potatoes for the first time…..had relatively good luck. BUT—–Had to literally go outside on a daily basis and pick off the Japanese beetles! Had tons of them. Any idea what to use, so they don’t eat the leaves totally down to the stem?
    A tin can, with soapy water, and then I would tap the leaves….the bugs just dropped into the can. That got rid of the beetles on a temporary basis. Help!

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