Preparing for Winter V

Floss

Just slice & dry - beetroot crisps are scrummy 😁

[Deleted User]

We've just dug up, chopped up and garden waste binned a vey large and fibrous old honeysuckle plant from the bed just by the kitchen door and rescued the very tall (and heavy) cast iron obelisk it was twining itself round.  Now we have a 4' x 6' bed in which we will be planting curly kale for the winter and the obelisk will be sited in a corner of the garden and used for runner beans next year...prep on!

Laura_Elsewhere

@boazu - if you know anyone doing home-haircuts, or you have a fringe you trim, or even if you have hairbrushes that end up clogged with hair, or a dog or cat you have to brush, keep the hair and next spring dig down at least a spade's depth where the runner beans are to go and put the hair in the bottom of the trench and backfill with soil and manure mixed - as the hair decomposes, it allegedly feeds the beans! 
I admit to having no idea if this is scientifically valid but during the war they collected hair-salon sweepings for people to use in allotments beneath their beans and peas!  

Nice work - I'm about to clear space in my own little raised bed to get kale and chard and lambs lettuce and miners salad and so on sown for the winter. 

My intended and I will both be at home all day this autumn/winter, as he is on sick leave for weeks yet (recovering nicely though!) and then when he does return he'll be working from home, so I'm thinking ahead to how to make the north-facing sitting-room cosier for us both. Having two of us in it much of the day will help keep it warmer, and he will have his computer and servers running too, but I am enjoying planning ahead... 

PipneyJane

Has anyone used their oven for drying things?  We have numerous tomatoes growing at present and while I'll make a tomato sauce base with the majority (for chillies, curries, bolognese, etc), I'm tempted to dry some as a substitute for sun dried tomatoes.  Has anyone tried doing that in the oven?  Got any tips/pointers/suggestions?

Many thanks,

-Pip

[Deleted User]

If you're oven drying (I've never done it but I know the theory) it's on a very low heat and they recommend leaving the door just a tiny fraction open to allow any moisture generated to escape.  Apple rings were traditionally dried that way not on grids but hung on pieces of dowelling  cut to fit and hang across the oven on the ridges that hold the oven shelves.  People made wooden frames with calico/cheesecloth/old cotton net curtains stapled to the frame which also hung on the ridges that the shelves hang on in the oven.  In theory you can dry anything in the oven that you can dry in a dehydrator but it apparently takes much longer.

Primrose

I,ve dried small tomatoes, cut in halves and sprinkled with herbs in the oven in this way.  Takes a long time but worked ok for me.  Problem was storing them in oil in jars afterwards as they went mouldy despite me sterilising the jars so don't know what went wrong. They freeze well in small containers  though.  Just be prepared for the oil to congeal I to a solid  white frozen mass and allow the container to thaw through  until it becomes liquid again. Store in fridge afterwards.  Cut larger tomatoes Ito quarters or even smaller otherwise they'll take ages to dry.  I did try one year drying some outdoors on the patio In a heatwave but the weather here is too unreliable and you really need to cover them somehow to prevent flies and other insects landing on them. Those pop up Lakeland dish covers are good but not  really Big eniught.  A very fine net curtain might work though

[Deleted User]

Found the idea in my dehydrator instruction book for making 'vegetable leathers' which can be used as cream soup bases.  2 x trays of carrot and coriander leather currently drying along with 3 trays of sliced rhubarb to see if it actually works, useful way to use up bottom of the fridge veg.

Living_proof

boazu I regularly make veggie leathers, particularly tomato in years when there is a glut. I sometimes cook them first and other times just blitz and dry but they don't come out leathery, but rather brittle so I dry in Kilner jars so the sharp edges don't pierce any wrappings. Right now I have nine trays of spiced plum leather in the Excalibur, and another load ready to be made. Always a useful addition to smoothies, porridge etc. and so light and easy to store.

Primrose

I,ve occasionally wondered about getting a dehydrator but we don,t have fruit trees and our home gown veggies are frozen.
Does  anybody know of a national organisation hiring them out so one could have a trial run to test whether you like the end result enough make an investment worthwhile?.  It certainly sounds a space saving way of storing surplus produce but with only two of us in the house  am u sure if  it would be worth the investment, not to mention the space needed for storage.

At least our automatic breadmaker, although bulky, does get used every week.  

[Deleted User]

There are only two of us here in the household but we grow lots of things and as with all crops that you harvest, none of them ripen in lovely convenient two person amounts no the harvest is colossal and keeps coming in quantity for weeks usually.  I don't mind freezing some things, fruit is usually OK and made dishes are fine but the only veg we freeze that's edible when it comes back out of the freezer are broad beans and tomatoes, and tomatoes have by the time they defrost turned into soggy little sacks of mush inside hard skins but with the dehydrator I can save all the beans we grow, potatoes that have sprouted can be cooked sliced and dried rather than chucking them out, dried tomatoes are a luxury produce and akin to the sunblush ones from delicatessans. and most other things that don't freeze very successfully dehydrate perfectly well  The best thing about the dehydrator is it means you don't have to eat your way through the glut until you feel you'll scream if you ever see another runner bean and can dry them and store them in jars until you find yourself thinking one autumn day Oh I fancy runner beans.  Dehydrated food is shelf stable without power too, yes it costs you the electricity to process the crop to the right degree of dryness but after that it just takes up space on a shelf, no power needed and no chance of losing all your hard work if there's a power cut or someone leaves the freezer door accidentally not quite shut.  When I'm not using mine, it's a fairly big Excalibur 9 tray jobbie it lives downstairs in the store but it more than earns its keep every year when we start bringing the harvest in from the garden and the plot.