A Big Dill | Texas Pickles

Dill. Kosher. Bread and butter. Whatever your pickle preference, it all starts on farms like Brian Curry's. He's been growing cucumbers near Hale Center in West Texas for about 10 years. He also grows corn, wheat, and cotton. But on his farm, pickles are a big deal. We started raising pickles in 06 or 07, and we raise them for Best Made. We fertilize the ground, we plow it, we get the ground ready to plant, then Best Made's equipment comes in, they plant, and they harvest. And all we have to do is keep them irrigated during the year. Brian grows every cucumber with Texas pride. Like him, Best Made was born and raised in the Lone Star State. It's Texas' only major pickle company. In the 1920s, Mildred Dawson was selling pies door-to-door. She started using the leftover egg yolks to make mayonnaise and sandwich spread. Sandwich spread needs relish. When the relish company went up on their pickle prices, she started growing her own cucumbers. Now 90 years and four generations later, Best Made is almost entirely pickles. Best Made's unique from anybody else selling cucumbers in Texas because they are grown in Texas. They're a Texas product. Texas farmers are growing them. They enjoy doing it. It's a fun crop for them. We have about 2,900 acres to 3,000 acres that we plant every year. Brian raises about 300 of those acres. He works closely with folks like Steven to make sure Best Made gets the fruit they need. About 60% of the pickles in Best Made jars are from this area, northwest of Lubbock. The hot days, cool nights, and low humidity of West Texas are perfect for growing these future snacks. My best yield has been 386 bushels to the acre. And they've started going to picking them a little smaller. So, you know, anywhere from 250, 300 is probably an excellent crop now. Planting starts at the end of May and goes for 12 weeks, about 40 to 60 acres a day. 45 days later, they're ready. Once Brian's cucumbers are the right size, Best Made brings out two self-propelled harvesters. Each machine picks about 50,000 pounds per hour. We ship to Best Made between one inch and two inches in diameter. They'll grow a size a day, and a size for us is a quarter of an inch. We've got about a 24-hour window to really get these things out of the field. Tomorrow, they'll be too big. Once the cucumbers are picked, they are graded, sorted, and loaded into trucks bound for the pickling plant in Fort Worth. About 15 semi-loads of cucumbers will travel from Hale County to Tarrant County every day during harvest. That equals out to around 30 million pounds of pickles. Chances are, if you're eating a pickle in the state of Texas, it probably, even if it's at a restaurant, probably came from Best Made at one point. Once in the Metroplex, they will either go directly to the plant in Fort Worth to be fresh packed, basically from field to jar in a few days, or they will head to the tank yard in Mansfield to be processed. Then it's time to put them in jars. No matter the flavor or the type, everyone from the field to the warehouse takes pride in their part of the pickle. We take a lot of pride in the fact that we put out the most tightly packed jar on the shelf. You're always going to get a full jar from Best Made. We have extra people on the line that make sure that we get that last pickle in the jar. Best Made pickles have a stronger dill flavor than most brands. Since they only ship to Texas and the surrounding states, they can cater more to Texas tastes. Brian enjoys growing crops that further the Lone Star Mystique. As a third generation farmer, he hopes the farming legacy continues with his sons. Maybe they will be the next generation of pickle producers. I'm hoping one of these days I can pass this on to my kids. I would honestly like to switch to mostly pickles, but it's very finicky and it's a pretty high risk crop. I hope we can raise this for a long time. I love this crop. For TFB News, Ed Wolfe, Hale Center.