PRESERVING THE HARVEST - DEHYDRATED TOMATOES

Without preservation, the harvest will be wasted.

Growing food is one thing, but using it all is another. Unless you eat all that you can fresh and give away or sell the rest, chances are that you'll need to save some for later. There are a lot of different methods for all sorts of produce preservation, and in this post I'll just share one simple one for tomatoes.

EASY, EASY TOMATO PRESERVATION

This one is extremely simple. If you can slice a tomato and press a button, you can dehydrate tomatoes. In fact, you can even make a solar dehydrator (which is on our to do list) and then you can even skip the "press a button" step!

Electric dehydrators are readily available in many locations. We needed a new one, so I bought this one for $40 USD at a local store. Basically, they heat a coil below the produce which is then used to dry (dehydrate) the produce. As long as the pieces of raw food are spread out enough, the hot air can work its way in-between the pieces and remove the moisture from them.

This was our first batch for the year, and we are very excited. We are getting a lot of tomatoes almost daily from our garden, and we only have eight plants producing at the moment. To harvest over 9# of tomatoes from just eight plants in one day is a rewarding experience, and preserving our harvest makes sure that it doesn't turn into a disappointment.

One remarkable thing about dehydrated tomatoes is how sweet they become. I was completely blown away at the sweetness the first time that I tasted one, and it's a flavor that keeps me coming back for more. If you've never tried these, you really should!