June 2022 - Coming Home to Eden

I have been dehydrating a lot and wanted to share a bit on the process. I prefer a dehydrator to hanging herbs. The idea of dust collecting on them is off putting to me though that can be avoided. You can do a lot with a dehydrator. It is a great tool to have on a homestead. This season so far, I have used it for dehydrating parsley, rose petals, chamomile, thyme, dill, and fruit leather. I use my dehydrator year round. One of my favorite things to make in it is yogurt. My dehydrator (Excalibur) can fit 9 half gallon glass ball jars of yogurt to incubate. It stays on the counter as a kitchen staple in our home.

Parsley pulled off the stalk after dehydrating but not crushed. The leaves are left whole mostly. When I use them, I smash them in between my hands easily. They keep nicely fresh this way. I filled a half gallon jar with an almost full dehydrator. I use a lot of parsley. I will be dehydrating more.

I keep it simple. Some tips: don’t chop up your light herbs prior to dehydrating. If you do, they will end up all over the dehydrator from the the fan blowing. Wait until they are dry, then pull the leaves off the stalk in the case of parsley, dill, cilantro, thyme etc. Chives I harvest long, dehydrate, then toss in a jar. I leave what I can whole and break them up as I use them to retain freshness.

I use parsley a lot so am happy to fill the dehydrator with it. I use to buy it by the pound from Mountain Rose Herbs. If you cannot grow your own, I highly recommend theirs. The quality is excellent. Parsley is however easy to grow. If you have not done so yet, head on over to a good seed source like Baker Creek and get yourself a pack of seeds. Don’t forget to leave one plant to go to seed and you will really get your moneys worth out of that one packet of seeds! This entire bed seeded itself. It made an otherwise difficult year easy for my family. It really doesn’t have to be hard folks!

I dehydrate rose petals for tea. Rosa Rugosa Alba is a lovely addition to the homestead. They produce nice sized hips which are a good source of vitamin C. They are however invasive so do be careful of where you plant them. These can be a great natural barbwire fence in the form of a hedge or under windows as a ”pest” deterrent. Both human and animal alike would not enjoy a tangle with this bush. She is sharp indeed and doesn’t mess around! I love the alba (white) variety as it has a very subtle soft pink tint to it which can really be seen in the dried state pictured above. Also, if you haven’t made rose petal jelly yet, I highly recommend it! It is delicious!

Certain varieties of chamomile are perennials here in our zone 4-5 climate. If you need a little calm once in a while like me…grow some chamomile. In fact, I could use a cup right now! I love growing perennials. You only have to plant them once and they keep giving as long as they live. You can’t beat that! I started a couple different varieties by seed. I harvest them fresh for tea too but I have more than I can use fresh. I also want to preserve them to use throughout the year. Dehydrating allows me that luxury. I use a sheet below my chamomile especially when dehydrating with other things because they have little tiny parts that with fall below the tray otherwise. If you are doing all chamomile, it doesn’t really matter.

Strawberries…oh lovely strawberries! We grow Cavendish strawberries here. They are cold hardy and long lived. We really enjoy these berries. They are an early to mid season variety. They have been plentiful for us. Once the novelty of eating something new wears off, you start to preserve. We are still eating them fresh but grow enough to put up to enjoy throughout the year. After we made strawberry ice cream and strawberries over angel food cake, we started freezing some. We have oodles of applesauce from last fall so took about half a jar (quart) to an equal amount of berries plus a little maple syrup or cane sugar and blended. Once blended, pour on lipped mats. These are much better than the flat sheets for leather. They give the leather a nice chew because of the thickness.

Here we have dill. I use dill in different dips, dressings and preserves such as pickles. This lovely herb reseeded itself with no work from me. Are you starting to see how simple this can be? I hope so. There is something so wonderful about using something that you grew and processed. It is a beautiful experience.

These pictures are from a previous season but I wanted to include them because it is one of my favorite ways to preserve tomatoes. I dehydrate these until they are thoroughly dry then store in jars after they are cool. As needed I dip using tongs into balsamic or apple cider vinegar then place in olive oil and let them absorb the oil for a couple of days before using. These are fabulous. I prefer balsamic vinegar over apple cider but both are good. I use extra virgin olive oil. I think these taste so good…much better than fresh tomatoes do in salads or on sandwiches. Don’t get me wrong, I love regular old fresh tomatoes, but the depth of flavor is fantastic in these yummy treats. They can be made as needed through the year. I make a pint at a time. They sit right on my counter since they get used up in a short amount of time. You do have to be careful when preparing them in this way. You do not want bacteria growing in there. I use tongs to remove them from the jar. Below is a last harvest before a frost. This is a big table. She gets covered with lots of food over the summer for processing!

Here we have thyme. Another wonderful perennial where we live in zone 4-5. I have planted this all around edges as a lower growing herb that can get mowed over and keeps kicking! I enjoy thyme in my food as well so love having it around. It has many good uses medicinally too.

Well folks, there is a bit on dehydrating. These are the ways that I use a dehydrator currently. There are many other uses. You can make jerky and crackers and all sorts of things. I love this dehydrator because it has a thermostat and a timer with an automatic shut off. What does that mean? You can set it and walk away or go to bed. In my opinion this type of dehydrator is much more efficient that the stackable types. I have used both and they do not compare. The Excalibur design dries much more evenly. I do still rotate the trays depending on what I am drying but find it to be a great addition to our homestead! I can make a post on making yogurt in there another time. Below are the exact tools I personally use and recommend. I hope I have inspired you to add dehydrating to your homestead! Enjoy!

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I would like to talk about the importance of growing our own food. With the way our world is, it is so important. I don’t care how much money you have to buy all the “organic” food in the world. Unless you know the farmer, you don’t really know what you are getting. With that said, props to all the true organic farmers out there. When a product is sold, it is done so to bring in money. As you have seen on your grocers shelves you can find many ”natural” and organic foods these days. This is very simply supply and demand. People have spoken with their dollars and companies are meeting those demands. I love seeing more of this…BUT, there are so many benefits to growing your own. Gardening isn’t for everyone…but everyone eats 😉 It is such a great skill to have and to teach our children.

I love using these cattle panels to make arches for growing vines such as melons, squash, and cucumbers. These save space and create nice visual interest in a garden. My children love to play underneath them.

Are you are interested in growing food but don’t know where to start? Maybe you have a lot of questions and feel that you don’t know what you are doing? Maybe just the thought is overwhelming? BUT, oh how you would love to have fresh food readily available! If this sounds like you, this post is for you. Our fears stop us from many things in our life. When you think of gardening maybe the word fear doesn’t come to mind. Essentially those thoughts I mentioned, if we pick them apart, may come down to some fears. Maybe that fear is messing up? Perhaps wasting time? Maybe it is wasting money? Maybe it is simply not a high priority for you? And let us all be grateful for grocery stores and farmers markets for the times in our lives when we need them! Sometimes we just have so many questions we don’t move forward. It may not be a priority for your family. It is for mine.

We live in a culture that believes we need to be an expert in order to do things. That mentality stops us in some cases from believing in ourselves. It leaves us thinking we have to know everything in order to try something new. Well friends, I am here to tell you that you do not need a masters degree to grow food. You don’t need a bachelors, nor an associates. Plants are awesome and amazing in their ability to keep on keeping on. There is that. I will explain that further shortly. Also, there is a lot of value in learning through trial and error. A lot. If the thought of growing food is overwhelming because you think you don’t know what you are doing, please, read on.

Different varieties of kale and mustard greens.

I really want to encourage you to start. Just start. If you never plant it…whatever it may be, it will never grow. It doesn’t need to be perfect. You don’t need to be an expert. In fact, I am going to talk about how easy gardening can be here in this post. Yes, gardens take work. No doubt about that. Today I am going to share with you how I garden and why I chose these methods. I have had several gardens. By far, my favorite, is having raised beds. I chose this after getting pregnant with my last child and not being able to keep up with the garden. Then, guess what happened next? I had a baby, lol. I could not keep up with a garden. That garden was a big fat mess full of weeds after such neglect. You do not need raised beds to garden. There is nothing wrong with having a garden directly in the ground! You can do it any way you like! But this is my preferred method. It comes with some great benefits like no tilling and many others when you get them established. Beds have more upfront work but once they are done, are so much easier in my opinion. The benefits of the upfront set up far exceed the extra work for me.

The first thing I did was think about how I could make beds with very little money. The thought of metal beds came from learning about growing sweet potatoes. They like heat. We happen to have zero shade and sweet potatoes do well here. Metal beds would help heat up the soil. I started looking for materials and read up on safety. I had a friend that had some old corrugated roofing buried under some brush on his property. He kindly gave it to us. We bought some rough cut lumber at an Amish mill locally and got to work. I marked the metal and my husband cut it with his circular saw (blade in backwards) while I hid behind a garage door. I really enjoy working with wood but was afraid of cutting metal for sure! Do be careful if you go this route. We used rough cut hemlock wood as it was the best we could afford at the time. I don’t recommend hemlock. It weathered very quickly. Cedar would have been a better choice but it was out of our reach at the time. Use what you have and do what you gotta do. We built the beds 6’L x 3’W x 16”D. We worked with the dimensions the metal pieces were. They were double that high so cut them in half. We were able to build 6 beds for very little money.

These beds with wood are the first beds we built as of last year. They are still functional but are starting to fall apart. One could just get some cedar and replace the wood. That would not be hard to do. You can see there is some duct tape on the end bed here. There were some sharp holes that I covered up for safety to keep little fingers out.

So we started with six beds. The following year I found metal beds almost the same size except they were only a foot deep. We bough 12 more beds over the year as we could. There was a great sale after the first six. I think we paid around $40 a bed for the first six and $30 something each for the next six with an even better sale. These beds were so much easier! They are all metal so should hold up much longer. I put them together alone with ease and placed them where I wanted them. Every year we invest in something that will feed us. Fruit trees or berry bushes or canes…for a couple of years we invested in beds as we could. At that point we then had 18 raised beds. I absolutely love raised beds. They have no bottom. We weedwhacked very short and placed them on the ground. I then put a barrier down to kill the grass and such. I love using old cotton or wool clothing or bedding for this. I don’t use any synthetics. We save our old clothing, sheets and towels through the year for this purpose. We use it as landscaping fabric. It is much better than the plastic stuff especially when growing food. Thick 6 mil plastic is fine for inbetween beds or rows to keep the weeds down as well as killing off an area prior. I hope to eventually add flat rock with thyme in between where the grass has been killed off for less maintenance. Back to the beds! You can also use cardboard in the bottom of the beds before filling. Just be sure to trim the grass very low first. Fabric lasts much longer than cardboard and newspaper and I prefer it. Covering weakens the plants so they die off easier. Think of what happens to newspaper when it gets wet vs laundry coming out of your washer. Fabric is much stronger. Thick cardboard works well too. The key is covering it deeply enough. Both things will rot over time. But if done well, it will kill the plants below.

Depending on the depth of your beds, you may want to add some old wood if you can. Wood such as that found in the forest. You don’t want to use treated lumber in your bed…or outside your bed when growing food in my opinion. Grab a wheelbarrow and gather old rotted wood to put as your first layer of your new beds. If you don’t have access to this, grab a tote or feed sack and head to some state land or a neighbors or family members home. You might also find branches and things out at the curb on certain days for brush removal in a neighborhood. You could call your local DPW to find out when. Maybe you have a refuse center with piles available? We live in the country and have woods so we just go out back and gather. Find some wood that will fit in the dimensions of your bed. Old rotten wood is wonderful. This layer will continue to breakdown and will offer your plants moisture from underneath. I like to top the wood with a layer of old leaves and twigs after that.

Next we add soil. I have two favorite soil sources. The forest floor, or our old composted chicken bedding with manure all throughout. So to recap thus far: Make a bed. Cover the floor of the bed with a natural material that will block out light from the grass. Add some old rotted wood. Top with old leaves and twigs, fill with soil. If you have to buy soil, this will get expensive fast. Find what you can from other sources. Someone may have a big old pile of composted manure that they would love for you to get rid of. Ask around. Post in community groups.

American Hazelnuts in lower right corner started from seed.

WAYS TO MAKE GARDENING EASIER:

RAISED GARDEN BEDS

Raised garden beds make life a lot easier. My beds are 6’x3’. I really like this size. I can easily reach in from any side to weed. In a bed style of planting, you plant closer together so fit much more food in a smaller space. For example, if a plant needs 6” in between each other, in a traditional garden, you would have one row of that plant with 6” in between then lots of space in between the rows to walk and harvest. In a bed, you plant that same plant 6” in both directions…no rows. This method can be done directly in the ground or in a raised bed.

I realize some do not have the means or capability to grow food. Gardening is physical work. Putting up food is work. Both of these things take time. However, there are methods that can make gardening easier and preserving faster. Gardens can be made to accommodate physical challenges. For those with ground to plant in that have physical difficulty, perhaps raised beds would help. You can make beds deep and use a garden bench to sit while gardening. Everyone is going to be different in this regard but if you really want to garden, find a way if possible. Perhaps someone without the ground to plant in would be willing to do the work on your land and share the bounty.

If you do not have your own ground to plant in, ask a neighbor or friend or family member. Maybe look into starting a community garden. Sometimes grants can be found for these kinds of things. Maybe your community already has a community garden. Where there is a will, there is a way!

This year has been a particularly difficult one for me. Planting was not super high on the priority list. I planted only two flats (72 cell). And then only added to what was already there. This is big folks.

LEAVE A PLANT
One of my best tips for easy gardening is leaving one of each plant to go to seed. Don’t pull it out in the fall. Leave that baby alone! Resist the urge to clean out the garden. Because raised beds are not tilled, the plants freely seed themselves into the beds and you do nothing! They pop up in the spring with zero effort from you. You can then do what you choose with them. You can rearrange if you desire or leave them or give them away. This year I had parsley, cilantro, dill, mizuna, kale, lettuce, red mustard greens, borage, Swiss chard, carrots, garlic, chives, tomatoes, nasturtiums, and sunflowers already growing in my garden. Let me tell you, this was a Godsend for our family. This is the way these plants were designed to grow! It doesn’t need to be hard folks! I filled in the open spaces with seeds and rearranged some. This took very little work. Gardening does NOT have to be hard.

From left to right: Gooseberries, blueberries, raspberries.

So folks, I would like to offer you encouragement to START GROWING! Start growing in whatever way you can! It doesn’t need to be ”perfect”…you just need to start! It is okay if things don’t go exactly as planned. I hope this offers you some inspiration to grow some food! It is wonderful walking outside and gathering your own home grown food! Happy planting!

Dehydrating The Bounty

Growing Food