Well, it's been requested that I share how I dehydrate my taters. I learned how to do it correctly from Scifichick. Thanks Scifi, again, LOL. I use one of those mandolin slicers, they give me perfect, uniform slices that work great for dehydrating. Then, I blanch them in boiling water for 3 minutes (a double boiler with the screen insert works great for this), drain them, pat them dry with a towel and spread them in a single layer in the dehydrator and dry them until they snap. I store them in plastic bags in a bucket. When I want to use them for fried taters or mashed, I simply simmer them until tender and finish cooking them into the desired dish.
Now for the rest of the news from the farm. Here we have some Roma tomato seed that I saved from what I grew last season. This was a test of the seed because I did not follow the recommended method for saving tomato seed. Everything I have read says that the seed must be soaked in water and fermented for a few days before drying them to save. I did not do that. I simply washed some seed out of the skins after I sent the tomatoes thru the food processor making pulp/juice. Dried the seed on the counter on a paper towel and just picked them off the towel the next day and stored them in a plastic bag. 3 of the 4 have sprouted and the 4th may sprout yet.
This baggie has some tobacco sprouting in it. This is also seed saved from last years crop. I just saved the seed pods in a plastic bag and when I was ready to start some, I just crushed the pods in the bag and used a teaspoon to get the seed. It is written that skin oil damages the germination rate of the seed so I do what I can to avoid having to handle those teeny tiny seeds. They look like dust in the bottom of the bag. There's probably 100 plants on that one peat pellet, as they get bigger, I will once again try to thin and separate the seedlings. It worked, kind of, last year. Some of the seedlings didn't make it thru my transplanting but the majority of them did.
The sweet pepper, cherry tomatoes, celery and coffee have not sprouted yet. The wait is killing me........
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The fermenting of the tomato seeds is just to get the gelatinous sack of goo that surrounds each seed off the seed. If you get it off some other way--like running it through a food processor?--it wouldn't need the fermenting process. It doesn't affect the seed, just cleans the goo off.
ReplyDeleteI'm really interested in your tobacco seeds. I tried to start them 3 different times last year with no luck at all. I didn't know skin oil could affect the germination. Thanks for sharing that one. I am going to have to order some more tobacco though. Looks like they have been spilled out into the bottom of the seed box, along with a few other things. I never thought about using a spoon to "pick up" the seeds. I'llhave to try that. Hmmm... I wonder what all would come up if I just scooped out all the seeds in the bottom of my box? I just might have to experiment and see what all comes up! I'm so glad that you are finally getting your seed "fix" lol Feeling better now? ;)
ReplyDeleteMushroom told me that Lucky is doing a little better. I sure am glad to hear that!
There's an Aussie who puts up videos on youtube from his self-sustained farm (I found the link http://www.youtube.com/user/theproducegarden ), and he simply takes out the seeds, lines them up on a paper towel to dry and folds it into a paper bag and labels it. He doesn't even detach them from the paper towel. The paper towel is then just ripped into pieces, and the seeds placed in soil or peat pellets when it's time to start the seeds. The paper towel is biodegradeable after all. :)
ReplyDeleteHey Angela! LOL, good to know, I thought last fall I was doing a big no-no, lOL.
ReplyDeleteHey Scif! good to see ya! Yep, Lucky is swelled up still but doing better. Just scoop some of those seeds out, it'll be a mystery sprout! LOL
Hey Penny! The Aussie feller has a good idea there, I use paper towel in a baggie to sprout seed too! I'm glad I didn't do wrong with the tomato seeds, soaking them always turned out ugly here and takes too long!
How do you store the potatoes,just in the bag or freeze them how? I never thought to try this ,thanks so much. Blessings jane
ReplyDeleteHi Jane! Once the taters are dehydrated, I just throw them in a bag and store in a plastic bucket. There's no moisture left so they keep just fine.
ReplyDeleteOkay...now I'm FOR SURE getting a dehydrator, lol...your taters look so great! How long to they last usually?
ReplyDeleteGood Lord, already starting a garden in late February?
ReplyDeleteIt poured rain here in Washington all the way through June last year and there wasn't any one I talked to within a hundred miles of here that had any kind of garden last year. My green tomatoes finally froze in November.
Sci Fi, I just read an article tonight about growing tobacco.
The guy said because the seeds were so small, to mix them with sand 50-50 and just use a pinch of that to get them started and thin them out as needed.
Thanks for posting on the potatoes. Have you tried to dehydrate cabbage, if so how do you do it? I have since found how to do more things on Dehydrate2store.com but she doesn't say much about cabbage. Gayle in Ohio. Big thanks to ya !!!
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