Solar Food Drying 2012

Reader Contribution by Cindy Conner
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For three summers now I’ve been using the sun to dry food in the solar dryers I built. It didn’t take long to work it into my routine, but then I’m available to get the food prepared and in the dryer in the morning and out before the dew settles in the evening. Things like kale, collards, okra and parsley are generally dry in one day, but most other things take two days, maybe more if the weather shifts and brings a little rain. I keep a close eye on the weather when I load the dryers.

The crop I dry the most is tomatoes and I have been trialing varieties specifically meant for drying. I grew Principe Borghese again this year because I knew I could count on it for a good early yield. Although the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange catalog listed it as 78 days to maturity, for the third year in a row now, my harvest has begun about 60 days after transplanting. These tomatoes resemble cherry tomatoes and I don’t particularly enjoy handling so many small ones, but it sure is a dependable crop. I cut these little tomatoes in half or quarters to put them in the solar dryers.

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