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The name for the Pretty Pickle Company came from one of those back-to-the-land kind of dreams. My brother and several friends rented an old dairy farmhouse just outside Salem, Oregon, surrounded by 100 acres of farmland. In the first year we painted, scrubbed, built and gathered a household into this cozy dairy farm house it had been years before. In the second season, our landlord helped us plant 2 acres of corn, tomatoes and cucumbers and arranged for us to pick from 16 acres planted in pole beans leased to another family. My brother built a proper vegetable stand out by the road and covered it with curtains when dyed green came out the color of a good dill pickle. That is why we called the vegetable stand “The Pretty Pickle”.
That summer, we harvested and sold gherkins and cucumbers for pickling, sweet corn by the sack, beans by the pound or by the bag for canning, tomatoes for stewing, canning or juicing. And, I started gathering pickle recipes from customers. My friends and family have been gifted many a Christmas with pickled green beans, garlic, relishes, jams, butters and sauces from my summer garden or the fields around Salem.
Something about being young. It was such fun!. Now that I am old (er), it is even more fun to keep the Pretty Pickle going. But it is not a dream anymore!