Easy Homemade Pickles -- What We Put Up From the Land While We Still Can

Spring equinox week. The light returns. The garden beds call. The construction sites are thawing and the three crews are ramping up and my back is making its annual spring protest, which this year is louder than usual — louder enough that Connie scheduled a doctor's appointment without my consent, which is a violation of my sovereignty that I will allow because Connie's violations are always in my best interest and my best interest is apparently not something I can be trusted to manage on my own.

The doctor said: the discs are worse. Two herniations now, both lumbar, both pressing on nerves. He said surgery or "activity modification," which is the polite medical term for "stop doing the thing that's killing you." The thing that's killing me is my job. Thirty-six years of construction — from mining to framing, from coal to wood — and the cumulative damage is in the discs and the discs are in the spine and the spine is the infrastructure of everything else and the infrastructure is failing.

I'm not stopping. Not yet. The paycheck is needed — Clay is self-sufficient now but the baby is coming and the medical bills from last year are still trickling and the mortgage doesn't care about my discs. But the timeline is shortening. The horizon of my construction career, which I assumed would stretch to sixty-two (the age Earl died, the age I've always used as my benchmark even though the benchmark is morbid), is now shorter. Maybe fifty-five. Maybe sooner. The doctor said "Listen to your body." My body is saying: find a chair.

This week: ramps. April is almost here and the ramp forecast from Betty is "thick this year, come get them." Clay and I will drive to Evarts next weekend to forage. The ramps don't care about my back. The ramps grow whether I harvest them or not. But the harvesting — the bending, the digging, the standing on a hillside in Harlan County with dirt on my hands and my mother in a lawn chair telling me which plants to pull — is medicine. Not for the back. For the rest of me. The rest of me needs the hillside and the dirt and the ramps and the mother in the chair. The rest of me needs Evarts.

Betty always sends us home with more ramps than we can eat in a sitting, and that’s the whole point — you take what the hill gives you and you make it last. Pickling is the thing I learned to do with the overflow, and it turns out it’s the same logic as everything else in a working life: preserve what you can, while you can, because the season for getting it is shorter than you think. These pickles work just as well with cucumbers from the garden when the ramp window closes, but right now, in April, it’s ramps I’m thinking about.

Easy Homemade Pickles

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 5 min | Total Time: 20 min (plus 24 hrs chilling) | Servings: 8

Ingredients

• 2 lbs small cucumbers (or ramp bulbs, trimmed), sliced 1/4-inch thick
• 1 1/2 cups white distilled vinegar
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 4 cloves garlic, smashed
• 1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
• 4–6 sprigs fresh dill (or 1 teaspoon dill seed)
• 2 wide-mouth quart mason jars, sterilized

Instructions

1. Prepare the jars. Wash mason jars with hot soapy water and rinse well. Divide the garlic, peppercorns, red pepper flakes, and dill evenly between the two jars.
2. Pack the vegetables. Pack the sliced cucumbers (or ramp bulbs) tightly into the jars, standing them upright or layering flat. Leave about 1/2 inch of headspace at the top.
3. Make the brine. In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the vinegar, water, salt, and sugar. Stir and bring just to a boil, until the salt and sugar fully dissolve, about 3–5 minutes. Remove from heat.
4. Fill the jars. Carefully pour the hot brine over the packed vegetables, covering them completely. Tap the jars gently on the counter to release any air bubbles. Add more brine if needed to cover.
5. Seal and cool. Place lids on the jars and let them cool to room temperature on the counter, about 1 hour. Do not refrigerate while hot.
6. Refrigerate. Once cooled, transfer to the refrigerator. Let sit for at least 24 hours before eating — 48 hours is better. These are refrigerator pickles, not shelf-stable; keep refrigerated and use within 3 weeks.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 20 | Protein: 1g | Fat: 0g | Carbs: 4g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 480mg