Preserving Your Harvest

[WthrLady]

I'm curious about drying onions and garlic. Will the smell clear the room?

Yup. My house has air scrubbers, so it's not that horrible here. The air is dry outside the next couple of days, so I MAY take the dehydrator out to the deck.

 

[Sally PB]

Ah. No air scrubbers here, and even on the front deck the smell would probably get inside. So probably not going to try this. Thanks for the info.

 

[WthrLady]

unless you have garden extras or there's a super sale at the market, it is cheaper to buy them already dehydrated.
I got a deal on spring onions and we use a lot and since I'm 1 hour round trip from the market, I like to have them on hand.

 

[wyoDreamer]

A friend dehydrated onions in her front entry, she didn't want to make the house smell like onions. The onion smell lasted in that entry for 2 years - there is nothing like walking through onions every time you enter or leave the house, lol.

 

[Sally PB]

A friend dehydrated onions in her front entry, she didn't want to make the house smell like onions. The onion smell lasted in that entry for 2 years - there is nothing like walking through onions every time you enter or leave the house, lol.

Well, that settles that. No dehydrating garlic or onions for me! I can just see, er, smell how that would be with all the wood we have in our house.

 

[WthrLady]

whole bunch of celery dried down to half a cup, which I will powder
a heaping cereal bowl full of jalapenos is now 3 level Tablespoons, which I will jar into a small spice jar.
These are just a couple of rarely needed ingredients that become annoying when I don't have them on hand with the market so far away. OR things that come in a large bunch that I only need a tiny bit of at one time, like the celery.
Only tripping out to the garden every couple of days time of the year. Nice, but depressing.

 

[BReeder!]

whole bunch of celery dried down to half a cup, which I will powder
a heaping cereal bowl full of jalapenos is now 3 level Tablespoons, which I will jar into a small spice jar.
These are just a couple of rarely needed ingredients that become annoying when I don't have them on hand with the market so far away. OR things that come in a large bunch that I only need a tiny bit of at one time, like the celery.
Only tripping out to the garden every couple of days time of the year. Nice, but depressing.

What do you use celery powder in? I'm assuming soups/stews, but is that it? And is it safe to assume that a little goes a long way? I imagine dried celery is a bit intense compared to it's water saturated garden fresh form.

 

[WthrLady]

It goes a LONG way.
Soup, stew- I do leave some in it's sliced, shriveled form
You can also use it as a salt replacement. I toss it in deviled eggs and bagel toppings use with pot roast and rubs.

 

[BReeder!]

A found this solar dehydrator build in Home Depot's project guides. It looks like an interesting concept and seems easy enough to build. I actually have some scrap lumber and paint in the garage right now. Thinking about it... Only issue is the time of year: we are going into wet and rainy weather this time of a year and the hours of sun are less and less.

DIY Solar Dehydrator

 

[BReeder!]

BTW, I found that dehydrator build because I'm looking for options to dehydrate large quantities but at a reasonable cost since I have large batches, but infrequently. I don't want to spend the money for a 10 tray American Harvest unit. That said my 5 gallon bucket of pickle chips tastes ready to go. I need to get on it with dehydrating them soon.