Garden 2009 - Spring - Update II - Sue-cchini

We didn't know what to expect with our 2009 Spring garden, but the Lord has seen fit to provide us with plenty of water in our cistern with which to water the garden; and He has brought the increase, and what an increase! As me and my buddies Rogers and Hammerstein always say, "Zucchini is busting out all over!"

I went out to see what was available to harvest; and, boy, there was an abundance of zucchini ready to be picked:






I looked through our book, "Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning" by The Gardeners & Farmers of Terre Vivante, to see if there were ways other than canning to preserve the zucchini. The book described a very easy, lactic fermentation method. I simply washed and grated the zucchini, skin and all, and put it into canning jars with a teaspoon of salt per pint alternating layers of zucchini and salt. Then I added water to each jar leaving 1" head space, put on the lids and caps and......that's it! I put the jars down in the root cellar and within days we had a very delicious and fresh tasting zucchini kraut:





I also read that drying zucchini is a very good way to preserve it. I was excited to be able to utilize the wonderful solar food dryer that Dave had made. So I cut up the zucchini into slices, and within a couple of days they were shriveled and crispy! They say you can eat them like potato chips with dip or use them in soups and casseroles.

Here they are put out to dry on trays in our solar food dehydrator:




Here are the dried chips after 1-2 days in the dehydrator (the orange looking pieces are apricots which turned out delicious as well!):




I preserved the dried zucchini chips in glass jars. And I didn't have to use the pressure canner or a drop of propane!




I also harvested a bunch of yellow summer squash I was hoping to preserve. I read online that one woman didn't like the "mushiness" of hot packed canned squash, so she and her family started raw packing it with no water. This way it could be dipped in egg and crumbs to fry it or be used in soups and casseroles. Well, I went ahead and tried it that way, and it worked great! I'm very excited to have found this method, which opens up a wider variety of ways to use squash in meals.

In addition to canning, I also processed some of the yellow summer squash with the lactic fermentation method, as I had done with the zucchini; and it turned out fresh and tasty as well, without any freezing or canning used.

What a huge blessing to be able to capture and preserve the freshness of these garden vegetables without canning or freezing. We are careful to thank God for the bounty of this harvest as well as His many spiritual provisions.

1 Cor. 3:6 - "I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase."

Susan

Air It Out

In trying to continue to get away from dependency on the world, we have looked into preserving food without canning or freezing. One of the methods for doing this with fruits and vegetables is drying. There are food dehydrators available for purchase, some electric, some solar; but it seemed to me this would probably be pretty easy to construct. And so I searched for plans on the Internet and settled on the plans here, partially because the design was very specifically laid out (which I need), and also because it appeared to be the most compact for the process behind the drying and still large enough to be able to dry quite a bit of food.


Here are some pictures of ours as I built it:






I decided to use 1" wood screws and 2" coarse drywall screws for most of it, and 1 5/8" deck screws for the legs. I found that a 1/8" pilot hole worked best with the 1x2s.


On the top I didn't use a miter joint on the ends; I simply used butted joints and alternated them for the vertical vs. the horizontal frames. Also, for strength and longevity, I decided to use .93 plexiglas instead of 4-6 mil clear plastic sheeting. I tried to find a 48" x 48" piece but couldn't; and so I thought I would use two 24" x 48" pieces with a support in the middle, but the store I was at was out of them. I went to another store, and they didn't have 24" x 48" pieces; and so, I had to buy 30" x 60" pieces and a scoring tool. However, that was good because the distance from edge to edge of the top was for me 49 7/8" (which means the other sizes would have been too small); and so, I was able to cut each piece to fit very nicely. Before I did that though and because of the extra plexiglas I had, I was able to practice scoring and drilling the plexiglas so as to not crack it when setting the real pieces in place. This was good because my first attempts did not work well. After practice though, I was able to get the hang of scoring and drilling, which worked pretty well on the final product:




I learned a few things with plexiglas: the scoring tool would cut into my 4' level when using it to guide my scoring, and so I switched to a straight piece of wood; I would score only a few times with the wood guide in place and then would do it free hand as I was able to apply much more pressure causing the scoring process to be finished quicker; and I found that quick speed and light pressure was the best way to drill a hole.


After the dryer was completed, I let it sit in the sun with the top off for a couple of days before putting food on the trays to allow the paint to bake in so the fumes would be hopefully removed.


Here is some food drying in it:




I added casters (swivel wheels) on the bottom of the legs to make it easier to move, and also added some handles which I attached to the sides where the inside food frame supports where located so that the handles would be more firmly secured and the handles' screws wouldn't be poking through the plywood siding:




And here are the banana and apple results. Quite tasty!




At this point they can be bagged and stored in the root cellar, and should last for some time.

We thank the Lord for His provisions in being able to make this food dryer, and for His provisions in creation to allow us to preserve in this way the food He grants us.

-- David