Dehydrating previously-frozen vegetables
Can you dehydrate vegetables that have been blanched and frozen? We need to open up space in the freezer for more room this summer.
Steve McKinley
Malin, Oregon
Yes, you can, I’ve done it several times after buying frozen veggies on a good sale that I don’t grow in enough bulk yet. They dehydrate well. Just thaw and lay out on the trays, and then treat them like fresh vegetables. — Jackie
Grafting
I have recently been interested in grafting. I think it is a fun and great activity. However, I want to ask your opinion on a more cutting edge sort of neo-grafting I thought up. I’ve researched and have found little to none on grafting jalapeños/peppers. I am familiar with the “rose tree” concept and I have been brain storming about how I can turn that concept into a short tree version of a jalapeño pepper plant. What are your thoughts on this? I have been searching for hours and it doesn’t look like it hasn’t been publicly done.
Mitchell Brown
Vidalia, Georgia
While peppers are, by nature, perennials, you could only graft one pepper to another variety, not a tree rootstock. To tell the truth, I’m not sold on grafting tomatoes, either; I feel it is too much work/expense for the typical homesteader to bother with. If you were growing commercially, maybe… We always get plenty tomatoes and peppers (now that we’re growing peppers in the hoop house). I save my grafting for fruit trees where there’s a definite advantage. — Jackie
