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I did a batch of pickles yesterday, with less than a week's worth of cucumbers, including the "siamese" cucumber. Two of them grew together.

During the summer I eat a lot of fresh food. Cucumbers, zuccinni, tomatoes, onions, beets, fruit from the trees, carrots, potatoes. My herb garden is going crazy so I have fresh basil and mint, sage and thyme.

I think the hardest part of summer is the transition from "fresh" to "winter" in terms of diet. For close to six months I'm eating real food, not something that's been processed to death for the sake of profit.

There is no comparison between a potato right out of the ground and one of those gray things they sell as potatoes in the supermarket. Fresh potatoes eaten with butter--they need nothing else.

Then suddenly it's gone, and I can feel the difference. What they call "produce" in the stores is a pale shadow of the real thing, short on vitamins and minerals, grown on chemical fertilizer in played-out soil that's been used and reused for years.

It's no wonder that people are always sick during the winter. I've tried growing plants inside during the winter, but it never works. I'll keep trying because I want fresh during the winter, too.

Insect control

Several years ago I made this stuff--I figured, insects don't like garlic, they don't like onions, they don't like hot peppers and they don't like vinegar.

So I mixed the four, using onion seeds instead of onions. The second batch I left out the garlic and it worked just as well. The ingredients are better fresh, but dried works.

Let it all sit in the vinegar for a couple days to as long as necessary--no bacteria or fungus is going to be caught dead in this stuff! Then strain it and pour the juice into a spray bottle. Or just pour off the juice and cover the pulp with more vinegar for the next batch.

Mix it with water at 5:1 or more. For a really bad infestation you may need to use it straight, but only if the problem has gotten to that point before you start. Aphids, beetles, spiders, whatever. It seems to work on everything. I never tried it on spider mites, because they're mostly in the house and there are people in the house who don't like hot peppers. :)

Spray it every day until the problem is gone, but watch the plants. Some plants are really sensitive to acids. It's totally biodegradable and you don't need to worry if your kids drink it (although they might end up immitating a fish to get rid of the taste).

Oh, and try to use white vinegar. My understanding is that other vinegars have a lower acid content, not to mention that they're usually made from fruit of some kind. I use a dilution of water and plain white vinegar (10:1) to get rid of fruit flies and gnats on my houseplants.

Note: I've seen suggestions that you should use some dishsoap in your mix, but unless it's biodegradable it might damage the plants. If you use dishsoap, don't get it on the roots and keep a careful eye on the more tender plants.