Love DU's Gardening Group
I may not post here much anymore, but I do use the ideas and wisdom posted here often.
This group has got to be a keeper!
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As for the dehydrator, use a low-power one for the herbs. We've got a 12 tray Nesco American Harvest Snackmaster and a 20 tray more powerful one (both US Made). Amazon.com has them for a decent price. We tried herbs in the more powerful one and it blew them all over the place - sort of funny, actually. The smaller one works great for herbs but takes a couple of days to do fruit. The bigger one will dry fruit in about 12 hours. Between the two we do pretty well.
The herbs can be hard to tell apart once dried, and don't think your nose will help. The whole house will smell like a sachet. We write the herb name on an index card, one line per tray. That makes it easy to identify them as we pull them off.
As for the storage boxes, the shoebox (or slightly larger) size work well. Put the herbs in MARKED zipper freezer bags and keep them in the boxes. We use a sticky pad to keep track of what's in what box. We do the same with fruits and veggies. Grow or buy when in season and you're golden for the winter. The herbs keep far longer that way than they do in the store spice jars. DARKNESS is critical.
Oh, if you decide to do apples, get an AppleMate 2 clamp-on hand crank - peels, cores, and slices as you crank the handle. Saves a SHITLOAD of time - but careful, it only handles small to medium apples. The uniform width (like curly fries) makes dehydrating a lot simpler since they are all done about the same time. Put the trimmings in the compost (well, except for the cores you set out for the rabbits).
Our herb bed is 4'x16' and divided into four sections. One end section is dedicated to basil (although we start pre-end of frost with radishes and lettuce in there). The other three sections have become a jungle. No matter how much we clip, we still get more. And if you haven't tried it yet, look for parcel (also called "clipping parsley"
. It looks like parsley but tastes like celery. It also freezes well. As do chives. Our chive colony is over 20 years old and has lived in three different places in PA and one in NH. We keep dividing it and giving it away but it lives on. Keep it in containers!!!
We had one pot of cilantro on the opposite side of the house from the herb bed. That entire side of the house now has a permanent establishment. We try to harvest the coriander, but enough gets away to keep the population going. The banana mint owns a shrub on that side but they inter-grow without arguing too much so we leave them alone.
