"Microbiology, One of my favorite biologies..."

I'm so happy that our garden hasn't died yet that I'll start us off with a pretty picture of a flowering dill: 

You're Welcome. 

We started out this week right by talking about gut bacteria. Tis the season for all things canning and preserving and we had a few pickles to put up. The kids love pickles and I'm trying to store more things that my kids will eat instead of just what I love. Thus dill pickles: Nahuel is here peeling a garlic clove. 

The really great thing about this process is that even though there's a shortage of jars and lids for canning this year, we could still make pickles. We've never used a natural fermentation process. We started out our science week by learning about good and bad bacteria in our gut and why we need good bacteria. This may have caused a few nightmares about 'super bugs', but it laid the stage nicely for learning how to make naturally fermented pickles. Such an elegantly simple process. It's as simple as getting the right salt to water ratio (4-5 Tbsp :2 quarts) and washing some old jars (practically). You do need to use non-chlorinated water and non-iodized salt. We watched a few Youtube videos but this was the simplest and easiest that detailed the process for us by Farmhouseonboone: https://youtu.be/RsxqLSAmEUM. It made simple work of it, allowing the kids to help with the whole process. 

Here you can see the jar fresh filled with pickles, dille, garlic, peppercorns, and saltwater. The cucumbers are a new, fresh green color. 

This is after 5 days. The color has changed. Maybe it's a bit cold in our kitchen because we all agreed that they needed to be slightly more fermented. I was worried that we would have a sharp learning curve with actually eating these, but Leonardo, our most particular pantry raider, said he loved them. Even after I suggested peeling it because the peel could be bitter. I used lids under the lids and weighed the pickles down below the surface of the water. None of the lids have seals so they gas out and leak as the fermentation process takes place, thus the pan underneath. We'll put these in the fridge today and they'll keep for 4-10 months.