Celery bunch from the east side of the garden
On Saturday morning I got started early and finished the cleaning and washing of the celery. Tom had messaged me in the night that he would be here sometime during the day with his tractor and start cleaning up the front pasture fence line. That meant I’d have to get my son up and go out and get the fencing down before noon.
So once I’d finished the celery washing (just over an hour) and rested from the standing (again) My son and I went out and did the fence. I ate lunch and got started again after another rest, around 3PM.
First I chop the pieces into roughly 1” sizes.
I’ve used a regular blender for this but it’s much harder to do. This one is an Oster reversing blender and works far better for this job. I fill it ¾ full with stems and leaves. Then I add just enough water to make a thick slurry.
The next part is dicey. Once the slurry is poured, it immediately starts to separate. Carrying a tray with that is very messy. In the background you can see the 2 dehydrators on the porch. I’m set up to pour from the other side of the counter, and zoom to the dehydrators.
I pour it in a neat circle in the very center. It’s very deep like this and would get on the underside of the trays.
So I take 2 seconds to spread it thin, and you can see it separating already in the top left corner. Then I zip it into the dehydrator. (The dehydrators are level, or there’d be a big mess in there.)
I got 1 dehydrator filled and running by 4PM and went out to see how Tom was doing. I got side tracked and never got back inside until 5 PM. I made supper and did evening chores and got started again by 7PM. Then I realized I didn’t have enough mats for both dehydrators. So the second ran with only ¾ of the trays.
On Sunday morning I will have to empty all the trays and put the pieces of dried slurry in half gallon jars and seal them until I can finish the rest of the celery. Once it’s all done, then I can make celery salt.