Plant. Pick. Pickle.

Being Eastern European, pickles are a part of daily life, and I absolutely LOVE pickles. My mum has been making homemade dill pickles for as long as I can remember, and I will annihilate a whole pot of pickles, chug pickle water and even add it to soups. There is something pickled on my plate for most meals and it’s just apart of my diet and who I am. As I’ve never made dill pickles from scratch before (can you hear that? It’s all my ancestors clutching their pearls whilst gasping in shock), I figured, why not set the challenge to make pickles completely from scratch? As I’m trying to get better at gardening, I figured I could grow the pickles and dill (we don’t have all year to wait for garlic, but maybe next time), and see if I can make my very first batch of pickles. This quest can also help me get intouch with my culture, family and hopefully gain some confidence with making unique food (I’m terrified of poisoning myself by accident). Come along for this delicious journey, and let’s learn how to pickle pickles the old-fashioned way together.

The Plan:

To make dill pickles I need the following:
-Pickles (duh)
-Clean Jar/pot
-Salt
-Garlic
-Dill
-Water

As I plan to grow the dill and pickles from scratch, those will need to be set up in the garden and looked after for a little while. Everything else will be locally sourced, and I will either use one of the many jars I already have or I might borrow my mum’s pickling pot.
My goal is to set up the pickles in the garden asap. Hopefully within a few months we can actually start harvesting some pickles and move onto the pickling process. This blog series will have sporadic updates so please make sure you check back when you can to keep an eye on the progress.
Once the pickles are ready, I will pickle them according to my mums recipe and then hopefully, we shall feast!

The garden set up:

Pickles

Probably the part of this quest that will prove the most difficult. My aim is to set up a large pot and some support trellises for a few pickle seeds. When I’ve previously tried to grow pickles, the seeds I used didn’t all sprout and none really survived so I think I need to put them somewhere sunnier, use better quality seeds (I can still find the old ones in the soil, why are they blue?) and keep a better eye on them.
I’ve also started researching how to help pickles grow and will be trying a few new techniques that I’ve learnt may improve this year’s crop.
The pickles will be planted by the second week of September as this just misses the last of the very cold weather and will set us up for a crop harvest sometime in summer. All I need is enough pickles to make just one or two jars as I just want to prove to myself that I can do this.

As for the seeds themselves, I will be trying the Mr Fothergill’s Cucumber; Pickling Gherkin. My packet, which I just got from my local Bunnings, contains 20 seeds of which I will only be planting 4. I didn’t put the seeds in water or the fridge before planting.

As it stands, the set up looks like this;

22nd of September 2025:
I planted 4 cucumber seeds into a pot filled with drainage rocks, soil/potting mix and some compost. It was watered really well after planting and I keep an eye on the moisture of the soil throughout the week. I only need 2/3 sprouts to actually make it, but we will see how we go.
The pot has been placed in a relatively sunny spot with some patches of shade throughout the day.
The seeds have a small climbing structure put in, but I think I will be letting it grow across my grass area. The husband knows not of this plan. He is currently blissfully unaware that cucumbers spread out … a lot. More updates on this situation to come.

29th of September 2025:
We got our first sprout! One week after planting the first little shoot has popped his head out! Enjoy this maternity-style flatlay.

Our final sprouts came in between the 1st and 3rd of October. Since then, all are growing slow but steady.

Dill

It just so happened that last year, I wanted to plant some dill which means this year, it has returned to my garden and has already started growing beautifully. Moreover, in a small pot I also planted some panic dill seeds a few weeks ago and we already have all the dill that we will need for our pickling.
I’m sorry that I didn’t take photos of the dill planting process, but honestly, I just chucked a handful of seeds into an old pot and walked away; I did nothing extra or special, and it is thriving. It’s in a partially sunny spot and is doing very well.

That is where we are leaving this post for now. We have all our sprouts growing at their very best pace and I will try my best to take regular photos of their growth so for our next post, I’ll have lots of photos to share.
Check back in in the next few weeks to get a growing update. If you would like to leave and tips or information that may be useful, please feel free to do so down below. It is so exciting to have you follow along with me on this Garden Quest as we try to make our own homemade pickles from as scratch as we can. In an attempt to avoid doom scrolling and thinking about the state of the world, we will hang out together and just try to grow some veggies and pickle ourselves some delicious, delious pickles.

If on the off chance that this post has inspired you to get into the garden yourself, or perhaps you are as crazy as me and want to do a grow-a-long (is that a thing?), please let me know! I’d love to cheer you on, see whats growing in your garden and share some tips and tricks. Although this Garden Quest is something minor in the grand scheme of things, it’s good to give yourself some short term goals to help you along the way to the long term goals.

So, let’s plant, pick and pickle together!

Note: This is not a sponsored post. All opinions and thoughts expressed are solely my own and not influenced in any way. There are no affiliate links and I do not benefit from any link clicks or purchases made.