Gardening time

[Shandeh]

See how much better "lumière" looks now! maître d'. There, I did it again! Doesn't that just look exotic?

Yeah! Nice!

[Leejoyce62]

They drive me crazy sometimes when I'm trying to express myself in English, but it's worse having to go put them all in, since I mostly live and work in French up here. See how much better "lumière" looks now! maître d'. There, I did it again! Doesn't that just look exotic?

Please feel free to leave them. I love the look and, though my french is much less than fluent; it makes me want to go back to Montreal to this apt I had on Rue Drummond... and a cafe on St.Catherine... very good times.
I wish my co-op had access to all the other providers like yours. I have had to hunt them up myself.

[dogfoster]

Has anyone tried drying fruits and vegetables with a food dehydrator? With any luck? I have been thinking about getting a small freezer but that is an added expense to the electric bill, every additional appliance makes my small house unbearably hot in summer, and every year it seems that the power goes out for about 10 days either due to hurricanes or ice storms. The dehydrator at least I could run outside in the summer and take advantage of farmer markets' bounties. People think because I am a vegetarian I must eat a lot of vegetables, but quite frankly in winter especially, I do not. The produce in the grocery stores is atrocious, bland, never ripens, shipped in from who knows where, and I would much rather buy locally.

[dcrozier]

I spent today planting wave petunias along one end of the pool and just got some monarda to plant at the other end. We have lots of hanging plants around the deck and plant things that attract butterflies and hummingbirds. I am getting ready to try a new vine--cardinal climber that attracts hummers, I hope!!! I prefer to work outside and really hate cleaning house!!!!!!

I have monarda in two different colours (hot red and fuschia), and the hummingbirds love them. They also love my wiegela bush (also bright red flowers). A word about the monarda.... it grows like mint! You might want to contain it early on. I much prefer my tour around my yard at the end of the day in gardening season to cooking and cleaning!

Fortunately, my DH does lots of the cooking which frees up my evenings--I don't mind doing the dishes because I can do those after dark. Thanks for the reminder about the monarda--it will be going in a bed that is surrounded by concrete walks on two sides, a stone wall on the third and lirope on the fourth so it should be OK. Now if I can keep the chipmunks from digging holes in it, we should be good!!! I forgot all about fuschia--will get some this week!!!!!!!

[Leejoyce62]

Has anyone tried drying fruits and vegetables with a food dehydrator? With any luck? I have been thinking about getting a small freezer but that is an added expense to the electric bill, every additional appliance makes my small house unbearably hot in summer, and every year it seems that the power goes out for about 10 days either due to hurricanes or ice storms. The dehydrator at least I could run outside in the summer and take advantage of farmer markets' bounties. People think because I am a vegetarian I must eat a lot of vegetables, but quite frankly in winter especially, I do not. The produce in the grocery stores is atrocious, bland, never ripens, shipped in from who knows where, and I would much rather buy locally.

Yes. I had one. Gave it to my daughter as she does alot of drying. Works great, but uses energy like a blow dryer. Maybe they are more energy efficient now(mine is 10 yrs old). I used to do fruit, squashes, peas, beans, tomatoes, and jerky.

[dogfoster]

Thanks for letting me know the dehydrator works great. Don't have a blow dryer, but guessing you mean it uses a lot of power. That is huge factor for me, but on the other hand where I live it is incredibly humid where clothes hardly dry on a line and everything gets moldy during the summer so drying would only work with one of these machines or oven I think. At least the machine I could put outside so it wouldn't heat up house.

[Leejoyce62]

Thanks for letting me know the dehydrator works great. Don't have a blow dryer, but guessing you mean it uses a lot of power. That is huge factor for me, but on the other hand where I live it is incredibly humid where clothes hardly dry on a line and everything gets moldy during the summer so drying would only work with one of these machines or oven I think. At least the machine I could put outside so it wouldn't heat up house.

I lived for a couple of years near Houston, Texas. Very humid on the bayou where I lived, so I know what you mean. Dehumidifiers running all the time.

[K1P1quebec]

Has anyone tried drying fruits and vegetables with a food dehydrator? With any luck?

I have had a round, stackable food dehydrator that I picked up for $5 at a Yard sale in Maine for years! At the time, I was young and single and thought for that price it would be fun to try. They are quite pricey. I just lové doing apples in it....it smells wonderful! I know that now there are all kinds of sophisticated ones, as most gadgets are these days. If you live in à really hot area, I wonder how much you could actually do outside in the sun. I once saw a televised program on Italian cooking and they were explaining how sun-dried tomatoes are prepared. And I havé seen too how différent fruit leathers (like fruit rollups) are left in the sun until they become thick and chewy.

[K1P1quebec]

where I live it is incredibly humid where clothes hardly dry on a line and everything gets moldy during the summer

I lived for a couple of years near Houston, Texas. Very humid on the bayou where I lived, so I know what you mean. Dehumidifiers running all the time.

Humidity is very clingy. We are in a high humidity area where although not tropical (closer to the arctic circle than the equator!), we have to pay attention to the "feels like" humidity index factor in temperatures. In the summer we are dripping with moisture and in the winter the cold is literally bone chilling. I remember when I was young and living further south, my mom would have to remove her good shoes from the closets in summer so they wouldn't get moldy. Funny what sticks with you from childhood memories!

[dogfoster]

Unfortunately moldy shoes are not a childhood memory for me! I don't even have any good shoes either, but everything gets moldy here. It is like living in terrarium. I believe you can dry things on screens outside in the sun like colonials did, but the humidity is typically so high here. If I ever run the cooling system in my house, it is usually not so much to cool things off, though it does get hot, but to remove all the moisture. Actually that is why I finally gave up keeping an aquarium, I couldn't justify running AC all summer just for the fish tank!