As the summer garden dies back to rampant gourd vines, sweet potatoes, and roselle, I am diligently preserving as much of the harvest as possible.  Last year I neglected to make enough pickled vegetables to get us through the dearth of the late summer (you can only be excited about eating amaranth leaves for so long), and we bought cabbage and other out-of-season vegetables at the store to make up for it.

Not only are the store-bought organic vegetables expensive, but after a long summer season packed with just-picked produce, it was so very disappointing.  Then I wished I had made more time to preserve the harvest when we had it.

I want to have no regrets at the end of this season!  Half-gallon bottles of dill pickle relish, pickled peppers, and eggplant line the shelves and counters in my kitchen.  And best of all, the green tomato pickles!

 

 

When I first tried green tomato pickles a couple of years ago, I wasn’t sure what they would be like. When I found I really liked them, it was too late to make more.  And last year’s tomato harvest was sabotaged by an army of hungry army worms.

Crunchy and tangy, I prefer them to cucumber pickles.  And I don’t have to risk the rains and the bugs by waiting for the tomatoes to ripen before picking.  They are a perfect late summer garden pickle.

I’ve tested three different kinds of seasonings to share here, and I can’t decide which is my favorite.

 

 

General Directions

For 1 Quart Of Green Tomato Pickles

To begin with, chop the green tomatoes into bite-sized pieces.  You will need about 5 cups of chopped tomato pieces to make a quart jar of pickles.  Slice the tomatoes into a good-sized mixing bowl, and mix in the following seasonings.

Pack the tomatoes, spoonful by spoonful, into a quart jar.  I have a wooden pounder I use to pack the vegetables in (I’m actually not sure where it came from – it just showed up in my kitchen one day), but before I had that I would use a wooden spoon, or my knuckles to pack the vegetables in, which squeezes out their juices.

Make sure all the vegetables end up under the salty juice brine that squeezes out.  Then cap the jar, and leave it at room temperature on the counter to ferment for about a week.  Taste it after one week, to see if it is sour enough.  If it is more salty than sour, leave it a little longer.

 

Celery-Flavored Green Tomato Pickles

 

1 Tablespoon coconut sugar

1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds

1/2 teaspoon celery seeds

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

4 whole cloves

1/4 of an onion, finely sliced

2 Tablespoons salt

 

Curry-spiced Green Tomato Pickles

 

1 inches of fresh ginger root, grated

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1 Tablespoon coconut sugar

1 Tablespoon curry powder

2 Tablespoon salt

 

Spicy Green Tomato Pickles

 

1/4 of an onion, finely sliced

1 Tablespoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

1/2 teaspoon celery seeds

3-4 hot peppers, chopped

2 Tablespoons salt