#dehydrating plants

[lousydrawingsforgoodpeople]

[brainrotcharacters]

notice how as soon as Logan saw Wade wasn't gonna let up on the "I need you" bullshit, Logan started to self-sabotage?

[bees-and-stuff-to-buzz-about]

While I'm in a rental and I know it can't be guaranteed to stay, I'm going to plant Richmond Birdwing Vine (pararistolochia praevenosa), Purple Violet (viola betonicifolia), and Native Violet (viola hederacea).

They're the host plants for the Richmond Birdwing and Australian Fritillary butterflies, and I keep seeing that post about a man in America who helped out significantly I think with the California pipevine swallowtail.

There's so much I can't do to help with the environment, but planting a vine I'll need to trim in my own yard alongside a handful of other native plants and having a bit of a veggie garden helps myself, my family, and some animals in the area.

[iloveschiaparelli]

Harvesting & Processing Basil

Finally! The long-awaited basil post! I wanted to wait until the process was completely finished before putting this together. I deeeefinitely made some mistakes, as you will soon realize.

Part I (October 9): Harvesting the Leaves

I didn't take a picture directly before the harvest, so these ones from 12 days prior must suffice. This is more or less what I started with:

As you can see, it's a fairly healthy plant, albeit smaller than you might expect. My first attempt at basil died in July, and was replaced in August with a cutting from someone else's plant that was being given away on the local freecyling facebook group. I was pleasantly surprised to find out it the cutting had roots, so I planted it and this is what it became in ~ 2 months.

I wasn't originally planning to harvest on any particular day. It was more like I just, on a whim when I got home for the day, grabbed some kitchen scissors and went outside to cut some leaves. I was originally only planning to take a few, leaving some to grow. That was, until I discovered that the plant was flowering. If you don't know already what basil looks like when it flowers, here are some pictures! If you don't know, basil dies after it flowers. (At least that's what I've been told) So when i saw this, I knew I had to go ahead and harvest the whole thing. There is also a photo at the end of the flower/seed pods that are precursors to the flower. I had never understood how the ends of basil look different when they're growing new leaves vs. about to flower until I saw this. Now I know what to look for.

I was texting a boy basically the entire day while harvesting, so it took several hours longer than it needed to, because I kept pausing to type on my phone. I went out at like, 3pm, and finished + came inside around 6-7pm. Yes, we are dating now.

This is what it looked like at the halfway point, when I was just laying all the stems in a pile and collecting small leaves in the strainer:

That is when I realized it was hubris to have such a small vessel, so I grabbed a large mixing bowl from inside.

This is what the plant and both bowl & strainer looked like when I finished picking off of the main plant:

I was... shocked, haha. I did not expect the stems to have so much volume when picked. As you can see, I left some leaves at the end of the plant where there were flowers, so that I could enjoy them for a while longer until they withered. Also left some "undesirable" (by me) leaves behind on the woody stems.

The next step was to separate the leaves from the stems. Remember, I was winging this whole process and not thinking ahead. Otherwise, I might have been pulling off the individual leaves from the start. I got this setup, with a paper towel for a working space, and a slightly smaller mixing bowl as the receptacle for stripped leaves. I used bag clips and the weight of the bowls to prevent the paper towel from blowing away:

For the most part, I just relied on my fingernails to cleanly break the leaves from the stems, then threw the stems to the back of the paper towel and the leaves into the bowl. I only had to use the scissors a few times, especially for cutting off pieces of leaves where bugs had begun to eat them, or they were extremely yellow, but I wanted to still use the green part. Here are some process photos, including a couple of tiny heart-shaped leaves. There's also one leaf where, when I cut it, just the clear strip of cellulose remained where the rest of the leaf had been, and I thought it was cool that I could see through it.

When i was done, I threw the stems back into the planter. With the stems removed, everything fit in the smaller mixing bowl just fine. Since the basil was in the planter for only ~2 months, the plan is to remove the roots and re-use the dirt for something else (like giving more space to + propagating my African Violet! Which is something I've been wanting to try lately. I already saved an egg carton to potentially use for starting the leaves.

Part II (October 10): Washing & Drying the Leaves

I was going to wash the leaves and lay them out to dry on the same day, as I believe is recommended, but I got lazy LOL. So I returned the following day. I started by putting leaves in the strainer and rinsing them under the faucet, but quickly realized that that was going to be annoying and take forever. I finally decided that the most efficient course of action was just to fill the bowl with water so that everything got soaked. I used warm water, with no solution or vinegar or anything added.

I got an extra large baking sheet and put down a paper towel on it. I had just begun pulling leaves out of the water and laying them out on the paper towel when I realized that this was too much water involved. I fixed the issue (somewhat) by pouring all the wet leaves into the strainer and shaking it gently to remove as much moisture as I safely could, then set it down to let it continue to drip down into the bowl while I worked. Setup A vs B:

Although I started off trying to make sure everything was evenly spaced, I had roughly 14 layers of paper towels to put down so I eventually faded into chaos, as every ADHD gardener is wont to do. Some vague asf process photos & what the stacks looked like:

I let it sit for a few hours while I cleaned out my food dehydrator. Now, this is the part where I Completely forgot to be taking process photos, so Unfortunately, I don't even have any pictures of the dehydrator to share, except for this product photo of the model that I was using:

I laid out all of the still-slightly-damp leaves in all of the trays, trying to keep them evenly spaced and not overlapping but (kind of) failing. Then I shelved it to wait overnight for the leaves to air-dry. Had I been doing this properly, I would have let the leaves sit on the paper towels, in a single layer, instead of stacked up or in the dehydrator the way I did.

Part III (Several Day Period Oh My God): Dehydrating the Leaves

It is utterly embarrassing how difficult it was to get these leaves dry. The recommended temperature for basil/herbs is 95 degrees Farenheit, for 12-24 hours for basil. I started off at the lowest dehydrator setting, 100F, for 13 hours and started it overnight.

In the morning, two of my three roommates were complaining about the smell and asked me to move it outside to the porch (direct sunlight) I obliged, and seeing as the basil was still thoroughly damp, added another 6 hours on.

Then I forgot it overnight again. *sigh*

I brought it back inside and realized that all of the leaves on the top were brown (albeit mostly dry), but many of the leaves at the bottom were still wet. This is when I posted my cry for help on Tumblr dot com, and was told to not put them outside again.

Unsure what to do and overwhelmed by other tasks, I pretty much gave up. I ran it for roughly 12 more hours indoors a day or two later as a last-ditch effort, but didn't check it right away.

October 22nd was the day I finally took the time to check the leaves and I was immensely and pleasantly surprised to find that almost all of the leaves were dry! I knew that it had likely been exposed to moisture in the powered-off dehydrator, so I ran it for 2 hours just to get rid of any atmospheric moisture and then set to work on grinding it up.

Part IV (October 22): Processing the Dried Leaves

This was, honestly, the second-most-fun part of the process immediately after the harvest. It was a little bit tedious, but I still enjoyed it. It's also when I started taking pictures again.

First of all, I spilled several leaves onto the floor while trying to empty the trays into a small metal mixing bowl that I was using to collect the dried leaves. Unfortunately, they had to be swept away because our kitchen floor is dirty.

A week or two earlier, I had washed out an Old Bay seasoning container, anticipating putting ground basil in it. I know that whole leaves preserve the flavor better, but I am working with what I can here!!! This is what worked best for me this time. My roommate Lilly has a tiny asf mortar & pestle that she allowed me to use, so I washed it out. I grabbed a funnel for the Old Bay shaker, and set up shop at a foldout table right in the middle of the kitchen floor. I put on the podcast that I'm currently working through, a Behind the Bastards miniseries titled Behind the Police. It was released in summer of 2020 and is all about the history of the institution of police in the USA. Super interesting.

This was the setup:

So, the way I did this was, I would gather a few leaves at a time into the mortar & pestle, grind it up in a circular motion, and then pour the ground basil into the funnel and the Old Bay container. Pretty simple and straightforward.

A few leaves in the bowl were still damp/limp, and wouldn't crumble in the mortar & pestle. I just removed them as I went. I included the brown leaves from the top tray because, at this point, I was just happy that I wouldn't have to throw everything away.

This is what it all looked like when I was done! As you can see, only a few leaves had to be removed.

Part V: Conclusion & What I've Learned

It's absolutely incredible to me how much those leaves at the start reduced, until they only filled a tiny handheld bottle!!! Yes, that is ALL of the leaves!! To drive home how insane this is, here is a side-by-side of the initial harvest of leaves-only, and the bottle that it filled at the end:

Just crazy! It's a bit hard to comprehend the scale from these pictures, honestly.

From there, it was just cleanup and storing the dehydrator, then writing BASIL

basil BAsil. BASIL

BASIL. BASIL

all over the Old Bay container so that it wouldn't be mistaken.

The plan if i didn't have enough room in the bottle was to portion out & give away bags of whole leaves at the punk rock market, like I've been doing with zines (oh! that's something I haven't posted about!). I was slightly disappointed that I didn't have enough, to be honest

Going through this process has given me an insane amount of increased respect to spice harvesters both currently in the spice world, and throughout history. It's a LOT of work to harvest & process just one bottle of basil! It's like that one post talking about how our ancestors are probably proud of us, or at least happy for us, to be surrounded by spices and luxuries that previously were only available to the rich and powerful.

Also as someone with Indian heritage, which is known for its spices LOL, this honestly felt like it connected me a little bit with that culture that I wasn't raised in. Not in any crazy metaphorical way, just coming to appreciate the process and work that goes into spice production, in a way that I wasn't able to before going through this process. The significance of spices carries more weight for me now.

I don't think I'll be able to use all of this basil before next year. I honestly don't even cook with dried basil that often, it's just nice to have fresh basil. What I might do is manage a plant again next year, for the gardening experience, then just straight-up give away fresh & dried basil at the market like I was originally planning to this time. I could plan it a little bit better, though, to ensure that I can feel confident in the quality.

8/10 enjoyment. Tedious & frustrating at times, but ultimately very rewarding, and mostly fun! This is the first, and likely only, harvest I've had this year in 2024. I look forward to expanding next year!!! I can't wait to see what I'll grow then. Time to start planning, I guess!

[starbiology]

I just saw another post about this so this is a public service annoucement.

Stop watering your orchid with ice!

Take that tag and chuck it in the garbage! Phalaenopsis orchids are tropical and will slowly suffer when treated this way.

Phal Orchids are incredibly easy to take care of, the problem is all the purposeful misinformation.

To water your orchid, soak the plant in a sink of room temp water for 15-30 min about once a week then shake the water off. If the moss/bark is still damp between waterings leave it until the moss/bark dries. Be careful to not get the leaves or center (crown) of the plant wet, remove the water from the leaves with a paper towel if you do by accident.

Miss Orchid Girl on Youtube has some amazing video guides on care

[loubella77]

A square foot of turkey tail :)

A good tummy medicine. Helps gut health :) also helps reduce inflammation, balance the immune system, improves liver health, and improves heart health! I’m probably missing some but 🤷‍♀️

[heywriters]

what is the one food or ingredient you avoid simply because it was in every meal you had as a kid and you're sick of it? mine is zucchini

[crankygryphon]

Found an adult male Dubia roach chilling on my favorite succulent on my nightstand… no idea how he escaped but bro wasn’t eating it and I was late to work so bud got to stay

[roboboxtron]

insulin pump screen broke and my blood sugar is suffering so bad rn. this is not looking good for the a1c crowd. the boys are dehydrated i feel like a soccer mom for myself right now

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

Any further tips/advice for freezing veggies? Or any kinds of dish that are good for frozen veg that loose their usual texture (like celery, potatoes etc)?

Basically, cut and clean them to the size you will want in the final dish, since they'll be a bitch to try to cut once freezing makes them soft. For anything juicy, spread it out to freeze first so it doesn't all stick together in one chunk, or portion it into the servings you want to take it out in.

[When I get a camera cord, remind me to photograph my freezer stash, I have mixed potatoes, cabbage, celery and some other things in there now waiting on doing a duck roast,]

And honestly I haven't noticed much loss of texture after cooking. Unless you are used to very lightly steamed celery, the difference in texture there, as example, isn't notable. I don't use celery in stir fry, for example, because I don't eat stir-fry, but I use it in sauces and soups or in tiny bits in stuffing for poultry, so there's no difference there.

If it's the kind of thing that browns you can try tossing it in vinegar or lemon juice but honestly I don't care much about the look of my potatoes or whatever oxidizing slightly.

Pasta sauce and soups, or sauce put put on rice, curry etc.. is a good use for bits of frozen veg.

Really any dish where they normally get cooked a lot in with other things or fluids of any kind. Even tossed into meat pies I haven't notice a difference. It seems scary when they're raw because they seem weirdly soft like if they went bad, but it's because the water in their cells has burst out, much like it would with cooking anyway.

You can puree onion and garlic or herbs instead of having to cut it and make ice-cubes with it, and toss them in a bag, or even pre-caramelize all the onions and then make ice cubes of them to take out one at a time.

And potatoes, potatoes you don't freeze after cooking into a dish, you freeze them pre cut into either chunks for boiling, fries, wedges or shreds, freeze them, and when they come out you put them in whatever you would normally, like boiling them to make mashed potatoes, or mixing them into hash or latkes... It's like how you can get bags of frozen french fries and they bake or deep fry like fresh. I would not pre-make mashed potatoes necessarily because the other ingredients might separate oddly, unless I was making perogis to freeze for later or something. But freezing can even help get out extra water so they're easy to drain and dry or squeeze out for frying or adding to batter.

The goal isn't to necessarily find something to batch cook, it's to just get them cut up in a usable state and in the freezer with as little work as possible before they spoil. Deal with actual meal planning later as a whole separate process.

Pre-shredding carrots can mean having shred carrot to add to things easily, like cakes, tomato sauces, meat or vegetable pies, soups potato hash, ect, but it might help to freeze it spread out on a tray so it all doesn't stick together in a lump, or ice cube tray it, and then bag it, or -alternately- dehydrate carrots in a dehydrator in thin slices for soups. Dehydrated carrot is shelf stable a long time but if you freeze it dehydrated they last indefinitely, which can help make use of those huge bags of big cheap carrots that go on.

I'm not big on eating vegetables raw or half raw due to digestive sensitivities, and boiling or baking them makes them way softer than freezing does anyway. It isn't going to give you something lightly roasted or steamed, but it's better than throwing them out.

If you want to get clever about it keep track of how you cut up various veg for various meals and settle on 1-2 sized you are okay with them being in a variety of things and go with that.

The main thing is to predict to some degree what you'll want to make, but the benefit is being able to just reach into the freezer and grab pre cut veg. I like to grab out a pinch of frozen onion slices one meal at a time, rather than having an onion to work through in the fridge.

And if you are really into soups, you can actually puree tomatoes, cucumber and even lettuce that's about to go off, just clean it up and blend it, and then add it to soup stocks and stews and sauces, where it won't add much to the texture, but it'll add in those nutrients you would have missed from throwing them out instead. Most veggies that turn to utter mush when frozen can be blended and used for soups and sauces so long as you are at peace with them not adding any texture, and looking like goop or a block of coloured ice coming out of the bag.

Just make sure you clean and cut them like you would for meal prep first. You will NOT be able to clean and cut them properly -after- freezing, so you can't just shove them in there thinking you'll deal with any of the prep later, you have to do it first.

Personally, I batch prepare veggies this way into freezer bags before winter and stock up my box freezers with them, that way I have veggies all winter that are nearly fresh. I can just reach in and grab pre-cut peppers, onions and mushrooms to toss into a meal.

It's kind of easier to batch process like 10+ bell peppers at once and not worry about any other meal prep and then just have them for later, as example, and you can buy the bulk packages of stuff that's on sale because it's about to go off. It ends up saving money, sure but also means you are eating a more well rounded diet because you end up with this selection of veggies to just grab and toss in to anything on a whim... That aren't going bad.

You can buy enough corn on the cob to feed a big family, when it's cheap or on sale, and then just defrost one or two at a time for yourself.

Frozen ginger gets soft enough that you can squeeze out all the juice with a garlic press and leave behind the stringy bits, so if you cut it into 1/2-1inch chunks it can be good for that, and then you can take the crushed bit and brew it in a cup of tea, or soup stock... just rinse the ginger off before freezing it.

I also buy huge cuts of meat when they are on cheap, portion them myself and freeze them for later, so basically any meal just becomes taking out your pre-portioned ingredients and doing the actual cooking part with about 0 food waste. I also take the bones and fat off of meat I am cooking and freeze that separately for soup later, or frying or baking etc. Bones are a mash of bits by the time I am throwing out the remains.

Have leftovers you don't want to eat immediately in the following day? Frozen for later! next time you are hungry and don't want to cook you just toss that boy in a baking dish, bam! No food waste.

And when a whole bunch of something is about to go off, you don't have to stand there trying to figure out what you want to cook in the next 3 days that's going to use up 20 potatoes, you just cut them up and put the pause button on them.

If you don't have a box freezer, they are typically sold for 100$ second hand on facebook or kijiji and are a good one time investment when a tax cheque comes in.

Just make sure you are actually using the frozen food. You can't be thinking of it as less good than fresh or harder to make use of, because if you avoid using it and just keep buying more, you are going to run out of space and end up with freezers full of food you aren't eating. Get comfortable reaching for portions of frozen vegetables to add into things, and shop your freezers when you are getting ready to cook meals. [Pinch of bell peppers? Don't mind if I do! It's like a spice rack of vegetable add-ins now! Peruse.]

The last tip I have is to not buy a bunch of stuff to do this with all at once thinking you will have the spoons to do a week of meal prep with it all. Space it out. Buy the big bag of onions one trip, and get most of them frozen before you worry about grabbing a big bag of apples or potatoes, buy cabbage and celery the next trip and cut up most of those to freeze when you get home, or in the following days. Whatever is about to go bad, if it comes to that, just clean it up cut it and freeze it. or prep the whole things when you get to the meal you bought some of it for, depending on what it is, and freeze what you don't use.

Before long you'll have a stash of basically everything you use on hand. Then you can get pickier about waiting to buy things until they are on sale when you can. Like I buy butter on sale only and keep it frozen, but I also buy raw cranberries once a year at Christmas for 2$ or less a bag and just rinse and freeze the whole bags [they have holes int he bags for air flow]. I buy pumpkins for sale -after- halloween and cut them into quarters, bake the quarters so they are squishy, fold them flat into freezer bags, and then have a quarter pumpkin to use in pies or whatever I want. You get pumpkins for like a dollar, so you get each bag of frozen pumpkin for 25 cents [I have known people who do this -after- carving them for Halloween, if they aren't outside, just rinse bake and freeze them for food]. They have a sale rack sometimes of food that's about to go off that's all been bagged up together and discounted, and that is your friend if you are taking home one thing at a time and actually using it.

Frozen apple wedges, btw, do fine in an apple pie. And apple dehydrates nicely at home too. Same logic applies as carrots, if you dehydrate and then also freeze them, they don't stick together and you can have them indefinitely, and they take up a lot less space. But really I just freeze apple slices and then make pie filling with them [or add them to stuffing].

I will eventually formalize and share actual recipes, but so much of the cooking I do is measuring with my feelings that I need the spoons to go through making each dish and documenting what has it come out the best. There's some batch cooking things I do like pre-roasting chickpea flour to coat dumplings and rolls in so they don't stick together in the freezer. I make about 50+ spring rolls at once from frozen bean sprouts and etc, and then freeze those to eat 2-3 at a time.

I just can't stand having food go bad in the fridge if I don't have the energy to cook, and I hate the idea of simply not eating vegetables because of it. I'm trying to save money and also eat well and my response to problems tends to be a little "smash it all with one simple elegant solution". If you have any specific questions please let me know <3

[13thpythagoras]

solarpunk farmer checklist

buy land without a well for super cheap because no baby boomers can fathom what i'm about to tell you next

next you need solar panels, wind turbines and an economical energy storage system, and an amospheric dehumidifier and filter system to draw from humidity and render it potable for you and your farm. [ref]

finally if you bought desert land, it's time to get your Stanley Yelnats hat on and dig some massive holes because ag plants can live well outside their 'growing zone' in the desert that way as seen above

...one interesting unique idea I've also seen explored, that could be good in some aspects, is using bamboo as a living trellis that any vining productive other plants can grow up and into like jasmine, tomatoes, strawberries, grapes (?), etc. The bamboo grows out fast and big, and the vining plants do well to keep up and utilize the strength of bamboo as a skeletal scaffolding, maybe using a fruit picker's extended basket for grabbing the stuff but you might have to line it with a finer mesh to avoid dropping smaller berries or tomatos, but here's a low-effort way to get an extremely productive yield out of just sun and water

Of course on upwards from there you can build real scaffolding and real ag architecture as seen in video etc but that's a lot more labor and material intensive than watchin some bamboo get super tall and watching your tomatoes climb all over it and flourish like crazy

additionally there's all this going on with the tree grafting, looks mad fun imho

[manasurge]

Tis' the season where I mentally and physically suffer. Complaining below (feel free to ignore, I'm just venting. I usually do this every year to get most of it out of my system lol):

mmm the fall/winter SAD is indeed in full swing. No warmth + no sun = a bad bad time. I always get so annoyed when ppl assume that I love winter bc I'm a "winter baby", as if that has any sort of divine intervention on instantaneously adapting you to perfectly fit the climate you were born in. NOPE. Silly human superstition. I start to freeze once it hits below 20C. I wish I lived in a warmer climate o|-< The depresso is probably going to make me very whiny and moody until next spring, so an early forewarning bc I'm EXTREMELY annoying about it this time of year bc it's the only way I know how to deal with it. But moreso in addition to the physical stuff is how badly it messes with my mind, making me so depressed to the point of just... sitting in non-moving silence where I become stiff as a board (very painful btw) and I isolate, making the bad depresso brain time even worse where I overthink everything bc of the silence and isolation. It's also always the time of year where everyone goes quiet too, which is understandable, but also makes things 10x worse (I am very alone in my life and where I am, and kind of rely on online friends bc they're all I have. I don't even have a pet. I'm literally just, loner mode. I don't really have much family to speak of, and only one family member I do speak to. I have little to no connections at all. But regardless, this is still the best living situation I've been in my whole life, so that's saying something).

[redd956]

Mini Whump Prompt 51

Plantfolk/Druid whumpees terribly dehydrated of water, having a cup of salt water poured on them

[mango-dolphin]

saw the anon assumption post- lets see.... im going to assume that mangoes AREN'T your favorite fruit!

...actually true!! they're still one of my favorite fruits, but i made the username over 10 years ago at this point. i was obsessed w/mango! not so much anymore, haha.

i like fruit more generally now. mango is the most convenient one to say because it's the only one where i feel like i have a particularly attached desire for it, but nowadays i much more strongly prefer fruit flavors like rambutan, lychee, and lime. in particular i like eating the first two straight-up, and i like the flavors of lime, coconut, & wintermelon whenever i can get my hands on them. (thankfully lime-flavored stuff and things w/coconut as an ingredient are EXCEEDINGLY common where i live!)

in terms of flavors, find myself choosing lychee over mango a lot more nowadays. though in all honesty, i've come to prefer starches and more earthy flavors as of late.

[loubella77]

Another foraging haul :)

[nightly-ruse]

I’m sorry @doritopaw101 I accidentally posted and then deleted ur request :(((

Um anyways have ur dog cat! FireSand hypokit. This is Dogrosedune named mostly after Sandstorm’s favorite flower and his great grandma Rosetail (thru Sand’s dad Redtail) and -dune bc it’s suiting. I think she would be born like sometime after tnp and the clans settling at the lake. Bigender cat using she/he and a bisexualace. Goofy cat