Dehydrating is another great way to store the harvest bounty. At harvest time my dehydrator is going all the time. At this time of year I wish I had a much larger dehydrator. I have a L?Equip Food Dehydrator but last year it broke down during harvest season. I found out the dehydrator had a computer chip in the system and repairing the machine was time consuming and expensive. I cannot recommend this dehydrator because of the computer chip. My sister has a Excalibur Food Dehydrator, which is a real workhorse. If you are handy, you could build your own dehydrator. The book Dry It You’ll Like It! by Gen MacManiman has a set of plans for making your own dehydrator or you can buy one from Living Foods Dehydrators.
Dehydrating is very easy and can be used for any fruit or vegetable. It really doesn’t need any instructions that are not covered in the book Dry It You’ll Like It! Just cut up any fruits or vegetables and dry it! It’s that simple.
For more information about processing heirloom seed see Harvest Bounty: Seed Saving. If you would like some recipes for using yarrow as a medicinal herb please see Healthy Household: Comfort for Colds and Healthy Household: Bug Away Spray.