Garlic, herbs and compost diving dinner

Jay and I put our garden to rest for the year. We spent a beautiful October day in our community garden preparing a bed to plant garlic and harvesting the last of the herbs.

Planting garlic
Last week I prepared a large piece of cardboard according to a wonderful schematic that I learned during my garlic class a few weeks ago. The piece of cardboard was conveniently the width of the bed where I wanted to plant garlic, and I measured out and cut holes in a alternating pattern which facilitated making sure the garlic cloves were spaced evenly.

Practically speaking, however, we found ourselves picking the cardboard up to dig a hole or place the clove and we finally decided that a string stretched the length of the bed with marks at the appropriate spaces would be easier to work with.

I hunted down some bale twine (it's lying all over the garden) and grabbed a black magic marker and tape measure that I always keep in my car and we quickly made a planting guide. Our garlic is five inches apart in rows (I split the difference between the recommended four to six inches), rows six inches from one another.

This year we planted six different types of garlic. I bought four new seed stock, and planted seed stock from two varieties we grew this year. We buried the whole thing in hay and it's now nice to think that something wonderful and green will come up early next spring.

Harvesting herbs
We also harvested a little lavender, most of the rosemary stems, and all of the anise hyssop, and  buried the whole thing in a heavy layer of hay mulch to keep it from freezing and thawing next spring. I have not had much luck overwintering Rosemary indoors or lavender outdoors, and am hoping that this helps. I am pretty sure the winter will kill the rosemary but the lavender has a fighting chance. The herbs went into the dehydrator, and Jay made a tea out of the anise hyssop after dinner. Absolutely aromatic and wonderful.

Compost diving for dinner
When I dropped things off in the compost pile I found a stalk of brussels sprouts. The brussels sprouts were small, I'm sure that's why a gardener threw it away. But what that Gardner did not know is my delicious recipe for cabbage soup that also can use brussels sprout plant leaves. Here's a link to that recipe in case you have cabbage or brussels sprouts that you want to cook up. We made it for dinner. Delicious.

Dehydrator decision

I used my parent's dehydrator last autumn to preserve part of my hot pepper abundance and at once saw the value and practicality of dehydrating food. The benefits are compounded by the limits of our smallish freezer and inability (for now) of buying a chest freezer.

A few weeks ago I took a great dehydrating class (through the Willy Street Coop by Polly Reott, master food preserver) where I pretty much decided to buy a dehydrator.

Now the decision is which one to buy. Please post your opinions and comments to my three questions below. If you are reading this by email, please go to the blog to post your answers so all can see! Thanks.

Vertical pros and cons

The obvious benefit to the vertical air-flow models is that there are stacking trays, which in some cases can be stacked pretty darn tall. This means that the dehydrator is always the right size for the job. My research (so far) is that vertical (round) dehydrators are cheaper to initially purchase.

However, the trays on the far side of the heating element receive cooler air, and often stacks need to be changed around. The vertical airflow also means that for the most part, you can't mix vegetables in the unit, because peppers below could flavor the tomatoes above.

Also, most vertical units are round. Geometrically speaking, most round and square units will take up about the same counter space but a square unit would provide more tray space.

Horizontal pros and cons

I went online to do some research. Polly highly recommended the "horizontal airflow" models such as the Excalibur they had at Willy West.

You can deduce two of the pro's by reading the cons above; less chance of flavor mixing with the horizontal air flow and more even heating.

However, these units have a fixed number of trays. And, horizontal airflow models tend to be pricier.

My needs

I expect to dehydrate peppers, tomatoes and herbs from my garden. But with one, a whole new world opens up. Crackers? Fruit? Squash?

So,  my three questions are:

1. Would you recommend buying a round vertical or square horizontal airflow unit?
2. If side airflow, I have to choose a size, generally 5- or 9-tray. What would you recommend for home use?
3. With either choice, what brand do you recommend.