Page 16 - Simply Vegetables Summer 2023

Amish Paste
Dried Amish Paste tomatoes and JPB peppers
pots and saucers of various sizes, I could not help noticing that there was a lot
less splitting, particularly with the Apero.
I top the saucers up to around a third to halfway, probably once a day depending on the weather, last year, sometimes twice, the object is to keep the plants slightly ‘wanting.’
to end. The Dometica were also sliced
up end to end, this enables the core to
be taken out, the slices were around 6mm thick. As an experiment the Amish Paste was cut crossways around 20mm thick, you can of course choose your own preferences when it comes to thickness. I set the timers to eight hours and clear off and do something else, after eight hours reset the timer for another four hours, you
Addendum
The dried tomatoes marinated in the olive oil were not very nice, to be more specific the oil was not very nice, I put this down to the garlic I put in. The job of rescuing the dried tomato slices was, to put it mildly – messy, anyway they were cleaned up and should last well into April; the oil is being used for stir fries, so nothing is wasted. Next year I may try infusing the dried slices in something else, but then again, the plain dried tomatoes are okay – so, if it ain’t broke, it does not really require fixing.
So. no Growbags, no border soil, just pots and saucers; several years ago I did some growbag trials,
using all peat growbags,
all recycled garden waste
growbags and growbags
with a mixture of peat and
recycled garden waste,
in addition to this a straw
bale. None other than the
peat growbag and the
straw bale lasted all day;
the straw bale had been
well saturated anyway. The growbags with the compost made from or part made up
of recycled garden waste (or municipal compost as I call it) required watering twice – difficult when you are at work.
The Drying Bit
I used a Vigo drier and the borrowed Excalibur dehydrator. The mini plum tomatoes were just sliced open from end
will need to be around to check periodically and take out the ones that are dried. The 20mm thick Amish Paste probably took longer than twelve hours. Thin-walled sweet peppers would be around eight hours. Courgettes, thick cut lengthways would be around the
same. Going off subject, bananas can also be cut and dried lengthways. The Vigo drier has five circular trays, and the Excalibur dehydrator has nine shelves and copes with a lot more fruit or veg. I initially used glass storage jars but since I find I am drying a lot more fruit, particularly pears I now use LocknLock plastic containers from Morrison’s.
The 20mm thick Amish Paste probably took longer than twelve hours
JPB sweet pepper
Drying Apero tomatoes
Dried Dometica tomatoes. Late Feb, 2023
16 Simply Vegetables