Sweet Pickle Relish

Each year that I grow my own garden I learn what works best for my small backyard.  When it comes to gardening, trial and error makes me sad because I put so much care and attention into it that it breaks my heart when a plant doesn't do that well or an animal "steals" a long awaited vegetable.

When things go right and I'm able to harvest enough of one vegetable I love to can something with them. This time I canned sweet pickle relish.  I love relish with so many things. Potato salad, egg salad, tuna fish, etc.  I think I get that from my Nana.  She loved relish too.  Especially on a good hot dog. She used to make what they called hot dog relish which is different than your basic sweet pickle relish. 

I was able to gather enough cucumbers and onions from my garden.  Unfortunately my bell pepper plants are just now getting blooms on them because of our cool summer.  We recently had a heat wave so everything in the garden is bolting.

I want to plant more pickling cucumbers next year.

Spanish onions coming out of the ground by themselves!

Spring onions on the left and Spanish onions on the right.

Sweet Pickle Relish

8 medium sized cucumbers
2 large onions

2 sweet green peppers

1 sweet red pepper
1/3 cup sea salt
2-3cups sugar depending on your taste
3 cups apple cider vinegar
2 T. whole celery seed
2 T. whole mustard seed

Chop up the vegetables in a food processor. Cover vegetables in cool water. Cover and soak for 2 hours then strain the vegetables well in a strainer.

Add in the rest of the ingredients to the vegetables, bring to a boil and simmer in a pot for 10 minutes. Stir often. Add the hot relish to the prepared jars and process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. You can print out the hot water bath canning instructions from the Ball Canning website here and keep it with your canning recipes.

The finished, yummy, sweet and sour product! Sweet pickle relish.

Our tiny garden.

My heirloom tomato plants having a late start after a cook summer.  They have gotten bigger since this picture was taken.

Tomato blooms mean tomatoes are coming!

My green beans did way better last year. :-(

Tomorrow we are heading to an Apple Farm!! I'm so excited.  It's been awhile since I've been in an apple barn. I love the smell. I hope to bring back a few bushels of different apples so I can freeze some, can some and dehydrate some. Fun, fun!