Freeze Dry your excess produce

[wiperhunter2]

For a number of years I've been using my freezer dryer(FD) I bought 5 or 6 years ago to FD my excess produce from my garden and peach trees. The first year I bought it, I still had my big garden out in the field behind my house and I tried FDing lots of produce but with little success, except for peaches. Since I had good success FDing peaches that first year, I continues doing them up until this year, when I started trying to FD my excess yellow squash and zucchini. After doing a lot of experimenting with the FDer I finally found the reason why years ago I had no luck FDing my excess produce. It turned out I wasn't drying them long enough on the dry cycle, in my journal, I had written down 3 extra hours and after numerous attempts this year I finally come up with the correct drying time 8 extra hours, wow, was I surprised. Up until this year we had always blanched our excess squash and froze them but now that I have it figured out, we will do both this year. FD our extra squash until the peaches start getting ripe. We will FD our first batch of peaches tomorrow morning, I got them cut up and on the trays and in the freezer today. I have found out over the years that starting the FDer the first thing in the morning works best because the produce come out 36 hours later, so they come out during the day instead of during the night. I have 5 peach trees, two of which are full grown and produce 500 to 600 peaches a year, here is a pic of one of the peaches I just picked.




Do any of you have a FDer? If so, maybe we can share info and learn to use them better.

[Kent]

I'm jealous of you having so many peaches.

[wiperhunter2]

I'm jealous of you having so many peaches.

I bought the first tree many years ago, I bet around 10 or more years ago now. Of course it took years to start getting the numbers I am now but I was getting so many peaches, I decided to count them one year and the next. I was very surprised when that number came out to be over 500 then the next year 600. I don't thin out my peaches, so they are all not as big as the one in that pic. The biggest issue with having so many peaches on the trees, is it causes the branches to break, at least one major branch breaked every year. Years ago, when I had that big garden in the field behind my yard, I use to throw the peach pits out into it and after a year or so, the little peach trees started growing. I gave away a bunch of trees but now have 5 trees in my yard. The largest tree, that came from that first tree is now as big as the first one and produces just as many peaches as the first one too. The rest of the trees are just starting to produce fruit but in the future should be big producers and they will start about the time when my first tree will start to decline, at least if my past experiences with peach trees are any indication.

[jjannie]

That's lot of peaches! We used to have guy from Brigham who'd come here to sell peaches, some tomatoes, nectarines, and even some squash, but he has passed away and his wife doesn't think the family will be coming anymore - he'll be ly missed that's for sure.

We too FD many foods - it's just too hard to cook for just too when you've spent so long cooking for a whole family - 3 boys can pack the food away, so being able to FD it putting meals away just made sense. We do like leftovers for sure but too many days in row is just too much of a good thing - LOL

Hey, we just learned you can keep your pepper plants over winter (lots of YouTube videos about doing it) so in the spring you'll have a head start and increase your harvest amounts and maybe even sooner than we can do now so we're going to give doing this try this year, so we'll post about this on our gardening thread. We'll see how it turns out.

[wiperhunter2]

Hey, we just learned you can keep your pepper plants over winter (lots of YouTube videos about doing it) so in the spring you'll have a head start and increase your harvest amounts and maybe even sooner than we can do now so we're going to give doing this try this year, so we'll post about this on our gardening thread. We'll see how it turns out.

How does it work, do you have to keep the plants from freezing, so they will regrown their leaves in the Spring or can they freeze and somehow survive?

[Kent]

Hey, we just learned you can keep your pepper plants over winter (lots of YouTube videos about doing it) so in the spring you'll have a head start and increase your harvest amounts and maybe even sooner than we can do now so we're going to give doing this try this year, so we'll post about this on our gardening thread. We'll see how it turns out.

How does it work, do you have to keep the plants from freezing, so they will regrown their leaves in the Spring or can they freeze and somehow survive?

Here is a link for you:  "Tips for Keeping Your Pepper Plants Alive Over the Winter - Cayenne Diane"

[Kent]

Here is my bounteous harvest from my one-year-old tree (if you look closely, you will see there are four peaches; however, a bird ate 1/3 of one):

[wiperhunter2]

Here is my bounteous harvest from my one-year-old tree (if you look closely, you will see there are four peaches; however, a bird ate 1/3 of one):

Wow, that's great for the first year, it took at least two years maybe three to get those first peaches on my store bought tree. Birds are a constant problem with fruit trees. Am I reading that tag correctly, you will get perches, plums, nectarines and apricots from that one tree? Thanks for the link on the bell peppers.

[Kent]

Here is my bounteous harvest from my one-year-old tree (if you look closely, you will see there are four peaches; however, a bird ate 1/3 of one):

Wow, that's great for the first year, it took at least two years maybe three to get those first peaches on my store bought tree. Birds are a constant problem with fruit trees. Am I reading that tag correctly, you will get perches, plums, nectarines and apricots from that one tree? Thanks for the link on the bell peppers.

Yes, they call them Fruit Cocktail Trees.

[wiperhunter2]

Here is my bounteous harvest from my one-year-old tree (if you look closely, you will see there are four peaches; however, a bird ate 1/3 of one):

Wow, that's great for the first year, it took at least two years maybe three to get those first peaches on my store bought tree. Birds are a constant problem with fruit trees. Am I reading that tag correctly, you will get perches, plums, nectarines and apricots from that one tree? Thanks for the link on the bell peppers.

Yes, they call them Fruit Cocktail Trees.

Sounds like a tasty cocktail.