pickling, preserving and wine making

Well its harvest time and this year we are in the thick of it all. Its been loads of apple wine making, elder berry wine making, damson, etc and then more of each and now I am pickiling cucumbers. Arent they called gerkins? Or rather are pickled cucumbers the same thing as pickled gerkins? I will have to google. Off to Incredible Veggie Roadshow tomorrow since we have a stall. I always fancied going to one but never have done and now am working at one so probably wont really get to have a look round. Never mind. Maybe we will take some money and sort it all out. Last week took only £90 over 3 days. Not good for survival that! Finally have bought some cello bags tho which means I am back in production making bath bombs. My handss are sore. I have started to react to gloves. I get a sort of exema. I cannot spell this but its a nasty itchy sore skin complaint and it happens between my fingers when I wear gloves. they are not latex either. I used to get this when I worked in a lab at a universiy but it went away. probably cos I moved into office jobs. I actually moved cos they paid better than lab work but anyway I have nasty itchy skin again. Not alot I can do about it either. A hazard of chemistry I think.
Back to the harvest thing. I went foraging. At the top of our road is a tree with sweet chestnuts. they are rubbish tho and the chestnuts that have fallen so far are sort of flat and empty. Not at all like the ones yoiu buy in tesco. I need to look for another tree cos somewhere around there must be one worth scrumping.
I need to buy some more sugar too cos none left to make any more wine or pickles and we stil have a tree laden with apples and soon the frost will come. I had better repot and bring in doors the geraniums too I suppose. they are amazing. I bought some seeds from Aldi for 35p and it said to start them in a heated propogator I think in april. then repot on etc. But we have no space at the moment to use propgators so i started in a pot in teh garden instead and it was June. Anyway they are proper geraniums - as in pelargonium geraniums not wild english type and they have actually flowered so if I can manage not to murder them this winter ( I am not good with house plants!) I will have a go at making some post hanging baskets next summer. My dad gave us loads of hangoing baskets - without anything in - just the wire baskets, so i wil see if I can make them. My last attempt at this I think was about 8 years ago and I spent loads on plants to go in it and murdered nearly everything in the process of making the basket. I cannot get the lobelia or dangly type of plants to drip from the bottom. I just kill them when I put them in the holes! There must be a nack to this that no one has explained to me!
Oh and I have a customer on my webiste! Hey its happening!