Do you dry your food stuffs outside??

[SKR8PN]

Anyone do that? I have a large food dehydrator, but was curious how many dry outside in the sunshine and if you do, how do you do it? What do you use to protect stuff from critters getting to it? I am thinking about using the greenhouse as dryer this coming fall. It gets plenty warm, I have good ventilation and with screen doors on either end,it is fairly well protected. Do you guys and gals think I could dry tomatoes in it???

 

[FarmerChick]

I dried Roma into little sun dried maters.

I spread them on a fine clean screen on the picnic table.....put some thin blocks under the screen to lift them up off the table to get air under there. Then I laid out my Romas, covered with cheese cloth and let them bake out in the sun. They came out kinda chewy but I ate them LOL

 

[FarmerJamie]

SKR8PN thanks for posting this - I been intrigued by the thought of trying it this summer, too.

 

[i_am2bz]

I thought I read a thread here somewhere that one of the members has dried things in his/her car...??

 

[Wifezilla]

I dry outside on the hot tub cover. I just cover everything with cheese cloth.

Freemotion dries things in her car. I want to try this, but the driveway is very shady so the hot tub cover works better for me.

 

[miss_thenorth]

Ok, I am not very good at describing this, but you can make a tray, basically like a window screen that you can open up, that has screen on the top and bottom. That way the air can circulate, and bugs could not get to it. It is perfect for onions and garlic, that I don't want to dry in my dehydrator

 

[abifae]

Ok, I am not very good at describing this, but you can make a tray, basically like a window screen that you can open up, that has screen on the top and bottom. That way the air can circulate, and bugs could not get to it. It is perfect for onions and garlic, that I don't want to dry in my dehydrator

Very like this only I find ehow's directions difficult. I think it is the lack of video and pictures LOL.

Here's another from a really neat site.

 

[murphysranch]

I had an electric Ronco dehydrator that I got off of Freecycle. Took DAYS to dry anything. So, I switched to my car dashboard.

Last summer I dried tomato slices, Italian prunes, basil, chard, kale, and apples. Spread them out on a silpat on a sheet pan, and put them in the car, which was in the sun, for several days. Bingo! Electricity free dehydration!

 

[ORChick]

When I still lived in Sunny California I dried things outside, apples and apricots mostly. I built trays - just butted four strips of wood against each other in a rectangle, and tacked them together. I used hardware cloth as the base of the tray, and put little blocks fo wood at each corner, so that they could rest on top of each other while still letting air flow through. I draped netting over all to keep out the bugs. And I placed them on the concrete patio, so that heat radiated upward as well. I had a gas oven with a pilot light at the time, and built the trays to fit the oven, for when the sun wasn't shining.
And then, a year or so before we moved, I found a white door at the side of the street marked "free", so brought that home, set it up on trestles on the patio, (gave it a good scrub) and laid out my fruit on that, again covering with netting. Worked like a charm.

 

[BarredBuff]

SKR8PN thanks for posting this - I been intrigued by the thought of trying it this summer, too.

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