First Try Dried Cherries
First a little comment about the garden.
The two rose plants that were cut back have produced lots of flowers. Unfortunately it looks like they will have to be cut back again as they are still spreading out everywhere. The yuccas are happy as they have put up more stalks than they ever have before and they will be flowering soon. Interestingly I have found in the produce section of the grocery store yucca root. I wonder if it is the same plant species. I will have to look up some recipes for it.
The foxgloves have grown taller this year than any previous year so they really like where they are too. As the foxgloves get older the leaves seem to get lighter. You can see the younger foxgloves that I have planted all over. They will flower next year and once the older foxgloves are done going to seed I will pull them them out.
On Sunday last week a friend dropped off a load of cherries. After doing some research on a few websites:
http://www.wellpreserved.ca/dehydrated-cherries-and-an-important-step-the-manual-never-told-you/
http://selfreliantschool.com/dehydrate-cherries/
https://www.excaliburdehydrator.com/dehydrated-cherries.html
I ended up pitting them using a knife (as I didn’t have a cherry pitter). I originally tried to do the chopstick method using one of my drying racks to hold the cherry but these were fairly small cherry so I ended up pushing more through the hole than actually pitting so it was fall back to using a knife.
I used a combination of sugar (to draw out some liquid and to sweeten it a bit, as suggested on one site) and drying it on the fruit setting for about a day. I didn’t have the super high temperature setting that was listed in the one site but they didn’t turn out too bad.
To get an idea of how many cherries it takes to produce one pint of dried cherries here are some pictures showing the start all the way through to the finish. I didn’t pit all of them saving some to eat but most were dried. Unfortunately, these cherries were quick to discolor as you can see in some of the pictures.
The two rose plants that were cut back have produced lots of flowers. Unfortunately it looks like they will have to be cut back again as they are still spreading out everywhere. The yuccas are happy as they have put up more stalks than they ever have before and they will be flowering soon. Interestingly I have found in the produce section of the grocery store yucca root. I wonder if it is the same plant species. I will have to look up some recipes for it.
The foxgloves have grown taller this year than any previous year so they really like where they are too. As the foxgloves get older the leaves seem to get lighter. You can see the younger foxgloves that I have planted all over. They will flower next year and once the older foxgloves are done going to seed I will pull them them out.
On Sunday last week a friend dropped off a load of cherries. After doing some research on a few websites:
http://www.wellpreserved.ca/dehydrated-cherries-and-an-important-step-the-manual-never-told-you/
http://selfreliantschool.com/dehydrate-cherries/
https://www.excaliburdehydrator.com/dehydrated-cherries.html
I ended up pitting them using a knife (as I didn’t have a cherry pitter). I originally tried to do the chopstick method using one of my drying racks to hold the cherry but these were fairly small cherry so I ended up pushing more through the hole than actually pitting so it was fall back to using a knife.
I used a combination of sugar (to draw out some liquid and to sweeten it a bit, as suggested on one site) and drying it on the fruit setting for about a day. I didn’t have the super high temperature setting that was listed in the one site but they didn’t turn out too bad.
To get an idea of how many cherries it takes to produce one pint of dried cherries here are some pictures showing the start all the way through to the finish. I didn’t pit all of them saving some to eat but most were dried. Unfortunately, these cherries were quick to discolor as you can see in some of the pictures.
