Daylily

I don't think cabbage would be good for cole slaw after rehydrating. It's good cooked though. I just filled the little dehydrator with sliced nectarines. We filled the big one with zucchini last night so It's about ready to take out. We dried some wild greens last week.

We try to sample some new wild edibles every season. Some are very good, some are good for a famine situation and some are not good at least to us. There are some really good web sites on this. I don't know them right off but google Steve 'Wildman' Brill and Holly Drake along with wild edible plants and you'll find them.

Interestingly, they all said the corn that we grew and dried was better tasting than the frozen corn that we'd dried. I had only recently learned that one can dry frozen foods.

The class was well received! We had 7 people. One family were out of town at a nephew's graduation from police academy and one older lady wanted badly to come but her husband wouldn't bring her! They want us to have another one. One lady said we didn't have to feed them, just teach them but tasting the food is a big part of it. It makes you want to actually try dehydrating. They all loved the food and went on and on about how good it was. We had beans that we grew and vine-dried, cornbread and hominy from corn that we grew and dried; and these veggies that we had dried: two sweet corns (one we grew and one from frozen corn),green beans, green peas, cauliflower, okra, okra with tomatoes, cabbage, mustard greens; a stir-fry of soy curls, red peppers, zucchini, broccoli, and okra; tofu egg salad with dried tomatoes; dessert was dried nectarines, pears, apples and blueberries. DD put everything in pretty dishes and it looked so nice. After the class, the three ladies jumped right in and washed all the dishes.

I have both a Squeezo and a Victorio. We bought the Squeezo years ago and was given the old Victorio. We've used it for the past several years and it works just fine. The plastic isn't cheap and flimsy but maybe the newer ones are. We can around 100 or more quarts of applesauce every year it it gets a workout. The auger had a crack in it when we got it and it hasn't gotten worse. We looked at getting a replacement last year and they seemed reasonable but we never got around to getting one.

I dried some blueberries last week and DD dried dill today.

Hi Violet, everyone who is coming to the class is a vegetarian so we don't have to worry about jerky. I'm pretty sure none of them will be making any. I will mention eggs and cheese though as some of the folks use them. Thanks! Ma & Pa Steel, those are good videos and quite inspiring. Thanks for the link!

Thanks! Those are good questions and some I hadn't thought of yet. I appreciate your input.

I'm sorry you were disappointed! I don't think we'll be appearing on youtube! We're too shy

Oh my that is scary! I hope you can get something that will help.

Well, we've set a date for the food dehydrating class! It will be July 22. We'll serve a lunch mostly of dehydrated foods, then have the class. Foods we plan to have for folks to sample include green beans, sweet corn, peas, cauliflower, some type of greens, cherry tomatoes, various dried fruits and fruit leathers. We'll have pinto beans and cornbread for the "main dish". We might do something with potatoes too. We're still in the planning stages. DH and DS will show and tell how they built an electric dehydrator. DD and I will show and tell how to do blueberries, apples, fruit leathers, and more as we decide. Of course we'll talk about general principles and safety issues. Any suggestions?

We canned a total of 94 pints of blueberries over the past few days.

TurtleMama, you can do this! I agree with Jeepers. Because you love them, you'll do a much better job. You don't have to know everything at the beginning. You learn as you go along and as your children learn. Don't be afraid to say "I don't know but we can find out!". I did this with my three kids often and they've become very efficient information getters and learners They're all in their 30s now and still love learning. We have the most interesting conversations. You will have great fun and also experience great frustrations. But it will be SO worth it to you and to your children.

Thanks for the encouragement! We'll most likely do this. We would like to serve a meal of mostly dried food so folks could try them as part of the class. We are total vegetarian so we don't have to worry about the jerky

Violet, I was thinking about you teaching people to can, etc. That is such a good work. Some folks are asking me to do a dehydrating class at our church. DD and I probably will do it. It would be a great opportunity to.

When I read the blog post, I was moved by it. I couldn't help wondering of our politicians would do any better. I think they might but would like to find out! This lady belongs to another forum that I'm a member of too. She's been posting updates on Greece for many months and just started the blog. Her husband is a music teacher and she had posted quite awhile back about some of his students fainting in class from hunger. It's sad. His income was cut way back, maybe by half, I can't remember for sure.

I can't believe there are 56 views and no comments!

http://homeingreece.wordpress.com/ Please read May 31's blog post called supermarket politicians I would like to see something like happen with our politicians!!

No! It's wet here. The gardens barely dried out enough for us to plow and till. We've only been able to plant the field corn, peas and a couple rows of potatoes. We have more potatoes to plant plus all the other vegetables and here it is May 22. 80% chance of rain today and it poured yesterday

Wow! Makes me tired just reading it! I hope everything turns out wonderful!

I have identified the "weeds". There is the catnip which I want to keep, some coltsfoot I'll keep too. Lots of thistles, I think Canada and bull thistle; another kid that I don't know the exact species. I've tried to grow redbud here but it won't survive. It grows all over the woods down off the mountain but not up here. There is mullein. I'm not familiar with motherwort or milk thistle. Maybe I should check on the unknown thistle species!! Thanks for the good ideas!

AH that is so cool! Thanks for letting us see it! I appreciate all the good ideas here. Any other "wild" suggestions? I'm thinking wild because I need things to cover the bank and choke out the weeds!

It opened just fine! Thanks so much. Do you know if thornless blackberry leaves work the same and the thorny ones?

DD and I want to start an medicinal herb garden on a sunny, dryish bank. There is a nice stand of catnip there already. We're thinking of yarrow, echinacea, and Queen Ann's lace. What would you put there? Thanks!