What to Pickle This Week: Eight Jars for Your Winter Pantry, From Gherkins to Green Watermelon

The first week of November is the last good week for the pickling jar. The markets still have hard green tomatoes stripped from the vines before the frost, late cabbages are at their heaviest and cauliflowers are tight and white. Anything you put into a salt brine now will ferment slowly in a cool larder or garage for four to six weeks, which brings your first jar to the table in the middle of December, in time for Christmas.

Families in Romania, Moldova, Poland, Germany and across the Balkans have filled barrels and jars in this month for generations. Before supermarkets flew summer vegetables in from the other side of the world, the jar was the only way to eat something crisp, sour and green in February. A few pounds spent on vegetables and salt this week still feeds you until spring.

Salt brine makes a living pickle, vinegar makes a shelf pickle