Dehydration

So if you have read any of my other blog posts you should know I have an Excalibur Dehydrator.  I love that thing.  It really does save a lot of space for things you dont want to can.  I have dehydrated lots of mushrooms, and a ton of onions from my garden.  I also opted to dehydrate my greens this year from my garden.  My garden is planted for my convienence.  I plant super early with greens, peas, and carrots.  And my early I mean by the end of Indiana March my garden has been planted with snow peas, regular pod peas, two types of lettuce, two types of chard, carrots, brussel sprouts, cabbage, radishes, beets, and potatoes.  Now for a normal person they start that months after I do but by then I have so much needing to be canned I dont have time to plant.  Anyway, dehydration is a great way to take what you have and reduce it down to nothing with no waste and plenty of shelf life.  Here is an example of what dehydration can do for you and your garden. 

Here is a tray of lettuce.  Now my planting of lettuce made 5 heaping trays to fill my dehydrator and I mean I heaped and had to skip trays or it would shove it off.  I layered a lot.  This picture is of some leaf and swiss chard. I tried not to leave any tray showing underneath. Here below is a picture of swiss chard after it is dried.

Yes that try was heaping.  Now I planted 4 - 6foot rows of greens( 2 types of lettuce and 2 types of chard) and one 8 foot row of kale.  I cut it all once when it was bit and bushy.  Each row would have made a huge salad for 6 people.  When I dehydrated all of it, I got two quarts of crushed greens.  That is a big space saver.  At the moment I have 3 quarts because the second cutting wasnt as good and I only did the 4 rows.  I have tilled them under now to allow my tomatoes to spread out and that area is now my tomato picking walkway.  I still have my kale and I am slowly pulling it up and giving it to the chickens to eat.  I have enough greens to last for a few years because I still have last years canning that I am using also.  It really does pay to get a dehydrator.  I also have winter onions.  My row is around 16 feet long and after I picked the small bulbs and chopped/dehydrated that I was able to get a 2 qt jar full of those also.  I still have the bulbs they produced on the top to replant this fall.  I think in a future blog I will give you a chart of when I plant and what I am harvesting/canning/dehydrating during that month.  It will be beneficial if you live around indiana or have a simular climate.

Pantry underway!!

Well this year we have a lot of projects.  I have three pantries.  I have three because we dont have room for one single big pantry.  We have now or rather are now making room.  I'm so excited I can hardly stand it!  We have a breezeway and its about 9x15.  It is less than that a little and its oddly done so we are trying to revamp it.  Our house has slowly over the past 11 years had projects done to basically redo the entire house.  It was not done correctly and was built in 1920.  It keeps us dry but has not been much to look at.  Our goal honestly is to have it done by the time we retire. It will be paid off before then and with us pretty much rebuilding it little by little we will have a "new" house by then.  This year is the breezeway project before we re-roof the entire house next spring.  The breezeway will soon be a utility/laundry/canning kitchen/pantry.  Then our now laundry room/water heater room will become a bedroom for our second boy.  They really need their own space and although in an odd spot and with no door it will serve its purpose.  The oldest would already like to have it which was odd to me because seriously the room they have now is like twice the size!  Anyway, we have poored concrete on part of our floor already and put in a new east wall.  The east wall is what is shown here. I've already painted because the water heater will be moved today as well.

The water heater is going behind the bladder tank and then both will be closed in.  Water heater with plank board and a shelf on top.  The bladder tank with have a cabinet built around it with a countertop for canning jars to sit and cool.  That stove my dad found for me a few years back in the paper for $25.  Cant beat that!!  Once the water heater is boxed in it will fit right up next to that and then off to the right and around that corner is going to be pantry shelving.  My canning jars will go next to the stove and then I think I will place dry food products next to them on the open shelves.  I already told my husband we are needing a window on the west side to place an air conditioner in to keep my dehydrated and dry products dry and moisture free during summer.  Its a very slow work in progress but we are hoping to get it done by September.  We are also going to carpet the entire thing with indoor/outdoor brown carpet.  We also went to habitat restore and found a vent hood for $12 that is stainless steel.  That way we can vent the canning moisture outside.  Hopefully we can make this look as nice as I already see it in my head lol.