2023 – Page 11 – Fruition

February 9, 2023Loni Recker

Meet Loni Recker, Master Gardener Volunteer

With a new cohort of Master Gardener Volunteers beginning to serve their community, we’d like to introduce them (AND YOU!) to the group of MGVs who have sustained this program for the last several years. Meet Loni Recker!

What is your gardening background?

I was born into a gardening family. I can still remember my great-grandmother’s beautiful gardens. My grandmother and mother carried on the tradition and my father is an amazing gardener as well. I think gardening was decided for me and I’m thankful for that.

Loni's great-grandmother and her tiger lilies — My Great-Grandma Benny

What benefits do you gain from gardening?

I love puttering, propagating, and tending so gardening is a natural avenue for all of those activities. I love meeting other gardeners and sharing plants, knowledge, and stories. I have a picket fence around a set of raised beds with paths. My garden shed door opens into the garden on the opposite side of the entrance gate. There is a string of lights surrounding that garden. When I open the gate, I feel as if I enter a special place that is separate from my realms of responsibility. I put away all thoughts of what I must do and allow myself to tend and cultivate as a form of deep relaxation.

Loni's raised bed vegetable garden — My raised bed vegetable garden

Why did you want to become a Master Gardener Volunteer?

I get asked a lot of gardening questions and I felt I should make sure the answers I give are correct. Through my Master Gardener Volunteer (MGV) training in 2013 I gained knowledge and more importantly I was introduced to a wealth of trustworthy resources. I rely on those resources, on our ongoing educational meetings, as well as the abundance of knowledge of my MGV cohort.

In what ways do you serve as a MGV?

Though I often answer questions about gardens and plant identification, my real passion is the Ogdensburg Youth Garden Club, which I have led for 26 years. I use my teaching and gardening skills to engage children in all things to do with gardening and I know our club has changed the lives and trajectories of many students. One of our graduates gained a passion for horticulture through the years of participating in our youth group. He joined us in 3rd grade and left when he went to college eventually earning his PhD in horticulture.

Ogdensburg Youth Garden Club members with bouquets they made — The Ogdensburg Youth Garden Club members are an amazingly creative bunch!

We have graduates of the club who stay in touch and continue to support the program through financial donations and through volunteering. Gardening is an activity that can be performed intergenerationally, for personal enjoyment, to beautify a community, or professionally. It truly is boundless. I want children to be aware of that and to know they can cultivate beauty in their lives. Read more Meet Loni Recker, Master Gardener Volunteer

February 3, 2023Kathryn Farr

Adventures in Dehydrating, Part 2

So, you’ve found your dream dehydrator and you are ready to get started. The dehydrating process is not especially complicated: Food is dehydrated by subjecting it to low heat and a steady airflow, evaporating enough moisture to inhibit the growth of bacteria, yeast, and mold—things that spoil precious food. You want food to be as dry as possible before storing it. Along with your dehydrator’s manual, the Internet has many reliable sources of dehydrating instructions (see resources below), so I won’t reinvent that wheel, but I will share some things I encountered during my first year of dehydrating.

Prepping Food
Ideally, all dehydrated food should end up at the same level of dryness, so chopping, cutting, or slicing food into uniform pieces makes sense, right? Imagine starting one thick and one thin burger on the grill at the same time: You know that the thin one will cook more quickly. Some obliging vegetables like corn and peas come uniformly sized. To cut up larger produce, many people use a mandolin. Since I typically shred my knuckles on a plain old cheese grater, a mandolin is probably not in my future. Seriously, mandolins are out for blood. An egg slicer works great for strawberries and mushrooms. Depending on the size and shape of the food, I either use sharp knives or my trusty Oster Kitchen Center.

Oster — If you still have one of these, you love it. Mine is 40 years old and still going strong.

Dehydrating Times

As shown in the chart below, dehydrating times vary, with juicier foods like peaches and pears taking longer to dry than, say, apples.

Dehydration chart — Chart from my dehydrator manual. Noting the desired texture of the food is helpful.

Some people ignore the recommended times altogether, leaving the dehydrator on for 24 hours no matter the food. Can you over dry food? Most sources say no. So how do you tell if the food is “dry enough”? The USDA says that dried vegetables should be hard and brittle, to the point that some will shatter when hit with a hammer. Before you pull out the ol’ ballpeen, take out a few pieces of food and let them cool before testing—warm food tends to seem moister and more pliable.

You may end up varying dehydrating times, but do not mess with the recommended temperatures. For example, if the initial temperature is too high, the food surface might dry, making it hard for moisture to escape. Instead of upping the temperature to speed up drying time, cut food into smaller or fewer pieces.

January 26, 2023Kathryn Farr

Adventures in Dehydrating, Part 1

Throughout my years of researching and studying food preservation methods—canning, freezing, pickling—I was always lured by dehydrating. I envisioned my pantry shelves filled with jars of efficient, shrunken vegetables just waiting to be resurrected. And seeing photos of stacked trays, all loaded with Martha-Stewart-neat rows of bright fruits and vegetables? Absolutely. And in reality? That IS the reality!

In the first of this two-part blog, I will share my experience in buying a dehydrator; in part two, I will talk about the dehydrating process.

Carrots in dehydrator — A batch of carrots is ready to be dehydrated.

The most important features to me were ease of use, size of the unit, and noise. Both price and capacity were somewhat secondary. Your prioritization of these characteristics may be completely different.

I was convinced from the start that I would buy a top-of-the-line Excalibur dehydrator. I usually buy the best tool I can afford because I don’t want a substandard tool to interfere with my ability to do a job. The more I researched, the more I realized that I probably did not need such a large dehydrator, and it turns out I was right.

This six-tray Cosori dehydrator meets my needs perfectly.

Before I bought one, I spent many hours researching dehydrators. I mostly read articles about what to look for in a dehydrator. I recommend you do the same to figure out what you want/prefer. For example, dehydrators come in different shapes and configurations: Basically, they are either rectangular and look kind of like a microwave with multiple shelves, or they are comprised of a stack of round trays. Most of the round ones have plastic trays but I wanted sturdy stainless-steel trays. Plus, I just didn’t like the round shape—hardly a scientific justification. Read more Adventures in Dehydrating, Part 1