Pickled Dandelion Buds

My friend Kimberly Gallagher mentioned she is trying to do one new thing with her favorite plants this year. That seemed like a great idea to me, and so in that spirit I tried pickled dandelion buds.

Recently I harvested whole dandelion plants from a local farm so that I could use the roots (for beverages) and the leaves for pesto. Once home I realized that although at first glance the plants were not in flower, hiding in the baselette of the dandelions were lots and lots of unopened buds... Hmmm, I thought, haven't I heard you could pickle these?

Luckily google came to my aid and I got this recipe from the folks at:
http://www.goodnaturedearthling.com/recipes.htm

I started by separating the flower buds from the stems. I just took the ones that were smaller and didn't have a lot of formed bracts. (Although some I just removed the bracts.) I ended up with a decent amount. When selecting your buds, you definitely want to make sure that the flower buds are close tight and have never been opened before.

I then chopped up some onion, garlic, and ginger and put all of that in a mason jar. I filled the mason jar about a 1/3 of the way with tamari and the rest of the way with apple cider vinegar. I'll wait a couple weeks before sampling.

Has anyone else used the unopened buds before? I've sampled them before while out foraging, but this is my first recipe. I am excited to see how it turns out.