Do you have the Ball Blue Book...the Piccalilli recipe is on page 49.

Piccalilli is a high acid relish, due to the added vinegar. It is safe for boiling water bath.

There is also something called "chow chow" that is similar. People often use the terms for each other, so not sure what she would prefer.

Here is a link that might be useful: Piccalilli

My mom used to put up at least 20 quarts per year. She used lots of green tomatoes, and Dad had the job of peeling all the onions. The house smelled like apickjle factory for a week after! She also tried Chow Chow, but was not impressed. Back then, she had big stone crocks to put the stuff in.

Did this lady spend her childhood in the States? Or in Europe? Did she have British relations? Because over here piccallili is something quite different. It is a distinctive yellow-coloured mustard pickle and always contains cauliflower. Notice - no tomatoes (they are hard to grow over here if you don't have a greenhouse.) Warning/disclaimer - as usual, complete absence of BWB or pressure canning. How do we survive?

Here is a link that might be useful: Piccalilli

Thanks for the replies! Yes the lady grew up in S. Carolina. And yes I have the Ball Blue Book! And there it is! Thanks so much!

Tomatoes hard to grow in Z8/9? Started indoors 6-8 weeks before planting outside in June, should give you decent tomatoes. I do this every year and never had problems. Last summer a tomato got loose and its seeds sprouted and I got a few green toms that reached that stage in September. This shows me that they do need a head start indoors for several weeks before they get planted outside.

Many southerners eat picalilli or chow chow with their veggies, like black eyed peas or corn or even beans...You just dish up the veggie and put a big spoon of the stuff right in the middle and grab the cornbread and get busy...

I'm not sure, but I assume that while the UK applies the hardiness zone system of the USDA, growing conditions would still be different due to the more northern latitude. The light conditions must differ and while the winter temperatures might not be any lower, the number of months of cold are greater?

Isn't the UK akin to the latitude of Labrador?

I was really struck by the difference in summer in Yorkshire when there was still light in the sky at 2 a.m. I don't think there was more than an hour of true night. And what gorgeous roses.

Carol

My mustard pickle contains cauliflower, and I also use some of the bolder brown mustard seeds as well as celery seed. I need to revamp my 'recipe' so that the veggies get salted the day before, to shrink them down some and draw out the excess water. I always seem to end up with more mustard than pickle. I would expect England to have a similar climate to the north east USA. Here in Z6 we can get down to zero and below some winters. Three years ago, the winter here was so cold, ALL my rose bushes died. They had thrived for many years before that. I even lost the blue/purple rose which was my favorite.

ksrogers - yes, tomatoes are hard to grow outdoors in the UK. I think you have also expressed surprise in the past that peaches are difficult here too. Although I have put z8/9 on my page it is only an approximation. We don't use zones over here at all as there is not such a great range of climatic conditions within the UK as there is in the US. In the South things are a few weeks in advance in the spring but thats about it. Remember that we are smaller than many individual US states. We are much warmer in winter than our latitude would imply because we are surrounded by water and have the Gulf Stream bringing warm water up our western side. On the other hand, being a marine climate moderates the summer heat. I had never heard of zones til I started looking at these forums. So I had to base my zone on a map I found in a book. What it really means is that we have the higher winter temperatures of your z8/9 but no way do we get the accompanying high summer temps. I think that the nearest US climate would be PNW, not the North East. Consequently we can overwinter things like bay and rosemary easily but have real trouble with hot summer crops like tomatoes, peppers, eggplants etc outdoors. I sow my tomatoes indoors in April and will first be able to put them out in mid May at the earliest. I would not expect to harvest any tomatoes until late August in a lucky year. We do not get the necessary heat or sunshine and we are likly to get a lot of rain too. Furthermore, for the last few years I have lost every plant to blight anyway. So not even any green tomato chutney!

Heat and cold are relative. readinglady wonders whether the number of months of cold is greater. It depends what you call 'cold'. Where I live the lowest temp this winter was around -5C (23f) on a couple of nights and it was an unusually cold winter. In the summer a day of 80f would be exceptionally hot and pretty rare. Our seasons are slow and gradual and much less extreme than in a continental climate. It means that growth is slower but there is a long window of opportunity for sowing, planting and harvesting.

That's interesting and informative, Flora. I did see a map online of hardiness zones for the UK, but the annotation also indicated that those zones were not as useful in assessing growing conditions.

Here in Portland, Oregon our average high for August is 80F. I have noticed similarities in climate and the gardens but our days are not as long as Britain's in high summer.

Similarly, we usually benefit from the moderating influences of ocean currents. Not though, like Cornwall. No palm trees here.

Carol

I understand. Blight is a horror show and I only had 6 tomato plants last summer, all grape type that didn't last through August. I have several powerful antifungals and plan to use these this year, even on my sooty bloch apple issue. Tomatoes hate to get planted in the same spot every year too, so you may want to move them. Another way to get summer warmth is though a greenhouse. Here, mine reached 122 degrees F yesterday, and outside temps were in the mid 80's. Very warm for this time of year. Many plants go dorment in colder winter months, and some need a specific amount of chill time. Someone wanted to grow blueberries in Hawaii, but thats not possible. I use black plastic fabric as a weed block in my garden. It helps to raise the soil temp quite a bit. Yes, you may be more similar to the PNW, as they do get a lot of rain and clouds. Apples do well there as do pears. Here, I am amazed at how well my new Asian pear trees are doing. One, planted two years ago had two big pears late last summer. This year I see about a dozen or more blossoms and plan to see if they get naturally pollinated by my introduced Orchard Mason bees, or I will use a cotton swab like I did last spring. Asian pears can keep in the fridge for up to 6 months! Mine were sweet and very juicy, and crisp. My grafted peach/plum/apricot is now in full bloom with 4 different kinds of blossoms on one tree. The apples are leafing out right now, and should soon have blossoms too. Even my little quince tree has flowers. Right now, asparagus is going strong and I have to pick every 2-3 days, or it gets too big and tough to cook up. I am even trying my luck at a Pluot, which is a hybrid cross of apricots and plums, The grafted pluot has 4 kinds on the same tree, and is planted in a prime spot next to my aging peach/plum/apicot. My garden is slowly getting converted to fruit trees and berry bushes, as well as stuff like asparagus, raspberries, and horseradish.

Oh well, those palm trees are cheats really - only the hardiest and toughest will survive on the west coast. No dates or those amazing royal palms you see in Florida. Yes ksrogers - lots of people here have greenhouses and tomatoes are fine in there - no blight. I do move all my crops around every year so it is four years before the toms come back to the same place. But blight is a disaster especially in wet years, which we get a lot of!

I agree. The blight was a major problem about 6 years ago for me when I grew some unusual paste type tomatoes. Luckily not all my plants succumbed to that But last year, all the saved seed grape tomatoes I grew had a limited amount of tomatoes and, most dropped off early then the plants just died suddenly. Unbelievable heat today, in the mid 90's and its another record breaker. I just hope that no frosts come after this heat wave, as that would destroy all my flowering fruit trees and kill any chances of bearing anything. My 6x8 foot greenhouse came from Sears many years ago, and it was originally made in New Zealand. I found a place on the west coast that sells similar ones and offers metal clips to hold the 2foot square glass panes in place. Got to replace three broken ones this year. Its a thicker than normal glass, so each runs about $14. Last year we had so much cold weather in June, that most of my plants just sat there without any growth until it got hot. My little fig tree has 3 figs on it and its still in my garage to prevent it from freezing. Once it warms up enough, I plan to dig a 2 foot deep hole and plant it outside as its just too big and heavy to haul around. Amazing, as it sent up six new shoots from the soil around te main trunk. I also just saw my French Tarragon showing up, which is good news. I wasn't expecting it to survive a winter here, but it did.

Thanks everyone expecially Flora UK, I was seriously wondering if I had missed out on something with all these pressure canner, ect? I was told by someone to check out this forum from another forum, as I seriously wondered what would happen to my pickled onions if heat treated!!! I am British too moved here last June, always used old jars from store brought stuff! no heat treating except the jars and lids in the oven! so with my pickled onions, shallots and cabbage I will continue with the British method...accept I can't find malt vinager over 5% here!! and boy is that stuff is expensive!! I still made my onions and gave them to British Ex-pats in the area, warning them to eat them over the christmas period, the e-mails! "best pickles I have ever had"...me thinks that's missing the ol' country, more than my skills!
I have seriously considered contacting Sarsons about getting some straight pickling vinager sent over here, searched the interweb in vain :0( and I too don't recognise this Piccalilly, but may give it a whurl.

Heating the jars in the oven will damage them and destroy any previous heat tempering they may have been made with before their inital use. A better option is to either run the jars through a hot water dishwasher cycle, or put them in a big pot of boiling water prior to filling them. Around here, there is no readily available vinegar above 5% strength. They do sell small bottles of malt vinegar, and larger bottles of cider vinegar and white distilled. Commerical pickle makers use 20% vinegar and its usually from companies like Heinz, but only available in 55 gallon drums or larger.

Thanks Ksrogers, 55 gallons not a problem not likely to go off! haha, unless I need alot of jars which I tend to do, I use the dishwasher or boiling method ( my oven is huge can't get over oven sizes here!, boiling only when my small stuff like shallots...can't believe how expensive they are here, I think the advice on glass in the oven was excellent, cos it has to be said I am a bit blasé, I am from a glass family, and worked a few summers as student at my dads place so very well aware of stress points and factors which weaken glass, mum's family are all glass back to 1860's and owned a fairly big company so I tend to be oh! what the hay, my advantage is I can, and this sounds stupid! but I can eyeball a jar and think? your going to go? and either I leave it out, but every time I think, oh I'll give it a go, they go! never lost a jar I didn't think that about! but as said lucky, so that's why I think you advice is good, brought me up short and made me realise! not every one can do that...and I always wait for that fateful day when it all blows up in my face literially! and I spend hours clearing up the mess! and needing a new oven

Ever hear of a polariscope? These are polarized flters that can show stresses in glass under strong lights. Used to work in a place where they melted glass to Kovar metal. These were big CRT tubes. Pyrex glass is a special propritary type that has been heat treated and heat stressed so it can stand up to a freeze and oven transition quite easily. Ball was planning on making Pyrex glass jars many years ago, but Corning didn't want anyone else to have that kind of glass chemistry. Originally, Pyrex was used outdoors for train signal lights, as it didn't shatter even before the light bulb was used and oil lamps were popular. There is nothing worse than heaing a loud 'clunk', and then a burning smell coming from inside the canner. I had someone give me some mayo jars and tossed the rest after one cracked all the way from bottom to top in 4 big pieces plus many tiny shards.

Oh ksrogers thank you for that, I was racking my brains last night to think of what they where called, my dad had one, and you flip on the lights and looked through the polarized screen and the drifferent colours indicate the level of stress the glass is under at different points,can't remember what they all indicated but you can then after studying all types of shapes and thickness, of glass begin to predict where problems may occur, eyeball the shape and thickness of a jar not always correct but can mainly guess in the right direction, Corning/bibby brought my grandads company in the 80's , pyrex/ ball problem may, and this sounds crazy, have been a national security thing as the only other company really selling scientific and specalist glasswear at scale are German (who my dad worked for), my grandads company did very well during the war as they made not only scientific glasswear for labs but altometers for planes and cut the sights for weaponary, all optical glass for the UK was made in Germany before that! and we only had,what we had! before war was declared, so it was all very hush hush, no more glass for sights would have panicked people! which led to a bizzar set of problems, grandad was demobbed from the Army and his Grandfather who should have been interned as he was German! left to roam London shouting hail the fatherland to all and sundry! whilst working on this glass all the time! thats how I understand the story anyway! as you know family stories can come confused with time!

Graded seals were also a wild way to bond soft glass to quartz glass. I recall applying layers of different glass on top of each other to allow for expansion of the metal rod and glass seal and resist cracking of the very high temp quartz glass. Ball has a convayer belt that has people or maybe machines now look through every jar they produce with the Polariscope. Some are failures, some borderline, and are reworked. The jars in top A1 condition are Ball, and the ones just slightly less, due to offsets in the mold, or minor thickness issues that show no stress ae marked as Golden Harvest. Now you know the whole secret.

Ever wonder who invented the flash tube? Those neat little lights that flash bright for photos, used on smoke stacks, aircraft, tall buildings, antennas, police cars, etc? DR. Harold Egerton, who I met personally some years ago. He always carried a few of his high speed photos of bullets going through playing cards, arrows through apples and the milk drop. I worked for his company EG&G for 16 years, and I also made the lights to help NASA dock their capsules. My long time at that company I also made the flash lamp heads that were mounted under the wings of airplanes flyng over Vietnam and other hostal places. Once in a while you see slow flying aircraft that have banks of these flashing lights who do the Google pictures that are closer to the ground with more detail. Really off topic now, but interesting to remember. The company is now owned by Perken Elmer, but still make many special goods for radiar and lots of secret stuff including saftet devices for our missles, detonators for ejection seats, trigger mechanisms for atom and H bomb, yes, that too!

yes off topic! but you have helped people decide what to buy? for their needs.
My grandad marks his 2 greatest failures in business as A) turning down cats eyes/ dots? the reflective glass in the roads, he says he couldn't imagine they would catch on! haha! and turning down the cathode ray tube for Logi baired'ss television system, he thought it was great and again couldn't see how the other system would catch on, he loves telling these stories, they just make him laugh so much at his own stupidity!
that said he must have made some excellent decisions as the company did well and even in the 80's when he sold up casting all his children appart from 2 and their spouses on to the unemployment line! for us not a problem my dad had been head hunted years before by Schott and my mum (his daughter)was a midwife.
If you want to continue this I will attempt to set up my e-mail..not sure how to do it but will give it ago, my knowledge is in no way as good as yours, I worked in the offices and picked the other stuff up by being nosy and watching the glass blowers at work as a child! imagine that a 6 year old wandering round glass blowers now! and annoying them with questions. I soo wanted to be a glass blower, but my grandad was one of the few who trained and his business had gone by the time I was old enough, I did get an internship through contacts but realised I couldn't afford to live on my allowance from my dad and mum...me thinks to this day they didn't actually want me to do it! so I became a nurse! and it is an excellent job, I love it and happy to say these days good at it! always good technically but...in the early years I didn't have life experience and could be a bit unsypathetic and impatient, but illness of myself and parents, their deaths, children all in a strange way made me a nicer person, rubbed off the rough edges as it where! well you live and learn!
glass is in the blood, which is a little painful at times haha!

I knew two pro blass blowers, both required the need to use very dark welding glasses to see through, as the quartz glass they were forming needed to get white hot to soften it, by using hydrogen and oxygen torches. Both people have died of brain cancer, one was much older than the other too. Not sure, but the brain cancer my have had something to do with the glass they worked with every day. The younger one also made glass figures, animals, flowers, etc., as a hobby.