My Garden Runneth Over

Praise to Community Gardens.  I signed up a year ago for a community garden plot from my county.  A month ago I got the call, a plot was mine.  It was weed covered and had been neglected, but a couple of days work, a load of horse manure and I had my first seeds and plants in.  Within 2 weeks I had radishes ready to be pulled.  A month later I am harvesting pickling cucumbers, sweet peppers in multiple colors and gold rush zucchini.  So now I am canning, freezing or both on a daily basis.  Because I am preserving as it comes out of the garden I have gone looking for recipes that allow you to preserve one jar at a time rather than starting with 20lbs of something.   Rodale has some easy refrigerator pickles to make and I have been jarring dills with the cucumbers and making Bread and Butter with the zucchini/pepper/onions.  I am experimenting with spice combinations and no I am not taking notes. 

I've been canning for about 30 years now and I can remember canning the old fashion way, turning jars upside down to seal, using paraffin wax for jams and jellies.  All of which are considered unsafe today.  I have an old 1942 victory garden pamphlet for preserving foods that I reference regularly and is a national treasure as far as I am concerned.  None of pickling recipes in it call for a boiling water bath to preserve the pickles.  To be safe one should if you want to have them sit on the shelf, but I am following Rodale's advice by just storing them in the refrigerator where they will last for months.  I shake the jars every day gently to stir the spices and will start eating them in a month or so when they have had a chance to really pickle.  They will be lovely come fall and winter and a reminder of summer.