You can grow dill in patio containers and expansive gardens.
Recipes abound that create delicious homemade pickles. Some are sweet, while others are zesty, but traditional recipes often include dill. If you're a budding gardener and a tireless home cook, making your own pickles is an effective way to harvest a bumper crop of cucumbers and herbs. To create pickles with the fullest flavor, it's important to harvest the dill when it's at its tastiest peak.
Identification
Dill belongs to the same family as carrots, as indicated by the similar feathery leaves of each. The herb is identified by its greenish-blue stems with plumes of yellow-green feathery leaves and yellow flowers. It grows 2 to 3 feet high, and at its maturation, the dill begins to seed. Depending on where you live, dill is either an annual or perennial herb.
Maturation
Dill has a distinctive caraway, grassy flavor and is one of the fastest-growing herbs. Basic garden dill can be ready for harvest in only 56 to 70 days. To ensure that you have a steady crop of dill for your favorite pickle recipes, or for your fish or vegetable dishes, plant dill seeds approximately every 3 weeks.
Harvesting
For your pickles to have the fullest dill flavor, harvest them at about the 8-week mark. Once the feathery leaves grow, use pruning shears to cut them at the stem. If you like to gamble, watch them closely and harvest them just as the flower heads open, but if you wait too long, the flavor dissipates. Use the dill as soon as possible after cutting as the flavor diminishes once cut. Remember to harvest only what you need for your recipe.
Refrigerator Dill Pickles
If you don't have a pressure canner or you don't want to take the time to can pickles in the traditional method, make refrigerator dill pickles. Combine 2 cups of sliced cucumbers in a brine made of 2 1/2 tsp. pickling salt, 1 head of fresh dill, 4 cloves of garlic, 1/2 cup white distilled vinegar and 1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper. Refrigerate the pickles for about 6 weeks before you start eating them. Discard pickles not eaten within 10 to 12 weeks.
Tags: feathery leaves, Dill Pickles, harvest only, harvest them, your pickles