Tutorials: Grow a Giant Pickle In a Small Bottle.

OK, I am going to include this for those of you who like to play with your vegetables!

There is a very nice article on SearchWarp, about How To Grow Giant Pumpkin, which reminded me of my grandfather who used a similar method for growing jaw dropping watermelons. This brought to mind some of the other growing oddities that we performed in our younger days. I thought some of these things might be interesting to other gardeners, who might not have shared the same sort of rural farm upbringing that spawns some of these strange experiments.

You have seen a ship in a small mouth bottle. You have seen vegetables in jars with wide mouths, but have you ever seen a large vegetable in a small mouth bottle? It is strange for most folks to see one large cucumber pickled inside a bottle that has a very small opening. It makes a neat conversation piece. It is astonishingly simple to do.

What you will need:
1. It requires a small mouth bottle of course, and this bottle should be very clean.
2. You will need a cloth.
3. It requires that you have cucumbers growing in your garden as well. This is how it is done.

The process:
1. Take your clean dry bottle to your garden.
2. Select an appropriate cucumber vine.
3. Find an appropriate cucumber which will fit inside the bottle.
4. Insert the cucumber into tho bottle.
5. Make sure that the bottle is shaded at all times. It can be placed under the leaves of the vine.
6. Wrap your cloth around the neck of the bottle very loosely since it needs air. This is to help keep soil out of the opening.
7. Remove other cucumbers from the vine, to redirect the growth to your project. Remove the blooms from the vine as they develop.
8. Check this whole arrangement periodically to be sure everything is going well, but do not cause too much disruption. You may have to move the cucumber deeper into the bottle as time goes by, to prevent it from being malformed by the bottles neck.
9. When it has reached the size that you desire, make a nice clean cut at the stem, and take your prize indoors for canning.
10. Clean off the bottle, clean out any sediment, and can it as you would normally for pickles.

You can add things like a sprig of dill, a red pepper, and food coloring for decoration. Be creative with it, and use it as a centerpiece for your kitchen table. It is sure to be a conversation starter!

Window Sill Science:
This can demonstrate to children the redirection of energy from one part of a plant to another, by forcing growth in one direction. It will also be a source of amazement to them!

Copyright 2007 James Burns