Wild Grapes

The part of gardening I like best is taking care of the produce. I haven't done much of it this year, as the heat really bothered me, and when we do go outside, we spend most of our time outside finding Zane after he runs off to some place that is taller than he is, instead of getting quality picking time.   He also would much rather play in the water while we are in the kitchen, or as soon as I'm distracted doing something that takes a little bit of brain power he has gone into the bathroom and squeezed all the clearisil on the bathroom rug, which will never be the same again, thank you very much.

So, because of not paying attention to the garden, I am able to produce large cucumbers which make very nice cinnamon pickles.   I don't like them very much, but some people I like very much, like these pickles very much.

So, to make them, I peel the cukes, cut them in half, and take the seeds out.

Then they are soaked in a lime and water mixture for a couple of hours, then washed and drained.

And after boiling sugar and vinegar and red hots, and cinnamon sticks, draining and boiling again for four days, you get....

THIS!

And these are a bonus, because we didn't plant them.  In fact, the grape vine these came from is growing all over through and around a very nice pine tree that has died from the current pine tree disease, (a fungus, I think).  We didn't know there was so much grape vine in there until it died.  Now we have to decide if we want a 25 ft. tall grape vine trellis or cut them both down.

The green part is the grape vine.  I wish we could get more of the grapes, but I'm not climbing that tree.

I picked all the grapes I could reach,

washed and cooked them,

added half as much sugar as juice, and it was good.