Gherkins

Can't really answer your questions. I know some people will pop scrunched up grapevine or oak leaves into the jar as the tannins stop enzymes making the gherkins soften in the jar.

muddled - did you get the preserving book free with this months GYO mag? if so there are quite a few recipes in there - although not tried or tested any yet im afraid!!

A friend of ours gave us four gherkins the other day, little Granddaughter ate all of them, she thought they were baby cucumbers
Sorry, no help with pickling
They kept well in the fridge though

We are gherkin fans here and after a few years of nasty astringent or salty pickles this is what works for me -
Pick every 2 or 3 days.
Salt for 4 hours and no longer than overnight. By salt I mean just sprinkle salt over and leave in a bowl in the fridge - about a teaspoon of salt.
Wash and rinse a couple of times.
Sterilize a jar.
Bring to the boil cider vinegar (I would use white wine vinegar but have never found it (cheaply) here in France!) with a few fennel seeds and some sugar to taste. Sorry to be vague - about 1-2 teaspoon per small jar of gherkins.
Pack the gherkins into the hot jar and pour the boiling vinegar on top. Seal with a vinegar proof lid.
If I end up only picking a small amount and so having a few small jars I do pour off the vinegar, reboil and pack all the gherkins into a new larger sterilized jar. The result is softer gherkins. But I found that if i picked and then kept the gherkins until I had a jarfull they were reall soft and yucky.
I have four (should have been five but the slugs had their share) plants of vert petit de Paris

HA! That was to be my next question!
Polish chap at the plot today suggested oak leaves for pickles but there was something of a language barrier and I wasn't sure I'd understood correctly!

I've got many preserving books vixylix but recipes give such varying results....I threw away most of last years having used four different recipes that all turned out to be disgusting, as PP says some salty, some mushy....I really need to find just one really good one to use again and again!

Thanks PP, I'll do that this evening. I think the books get too clever by half and a simple recipe like yours might be just the ticket (although I am tempted to try adding a scrunched up oak leaf, just to see)