DIY Apple Drier

So apple time is here again and having had success with the mark one DIY apple drier I decided to see if I could make it a bit more robust. It was, after all, only a cardboard box, some knitting needles, kebab skewers and a dehumidifier. BUT it worked.
The mark two is a little more sophisticated, it's a cardboard box, a wooden frame, kebab skewers and a dehumidifier. As you can see a lot of development work has gone into this new design.
The idea is to use the dehumidifier to blow a stream of warm dry air over the apple rings, which are suspended on the wooden skewers. The box I used is a flower box which florists throw out by the dozen. The wooden frame makes it all a bit more robust than just sticking knitting needles through the cardboard, as I did in the Mk 1. Some skewers are stapled to the frame to support the ones on which the apple rings are threaded. A door is cut in the box to make it easy to load the apple.
A hole also needs to be cut for the dehumidifier to blow into. Of course there has to be a hole in the top allowing the air to leave, in this box the hand holes were big enough.
The apples need to be cut quite thinly, no more than 1/4" or 6mm. The mark one dried them in about a day, we'll see how the Mark 2 performs.

Well I just looked at my last post (sound of bugle in background!) and another three months have gone by. Amazing!

So to recap, the Cherry-Plum jam is gorgeous and sadly nearly all gone already, hopefully we can make more next year. The bottling didn't happen, but we've frozen loads instead and they make really good crumbles.

More raised beds are being constructed as this is proving to be the ideal way of working with the heavy loam we have here. One of my earliest raised beds has now been established about four years. This year I grew parsnips in it and for the first time ever had roots that were difficult to dig because of their length. The nature and depth of the top-soil has changed dramatically having had no compaction from foot or wheel and only minimal cultivation over that time. It looks like 'Reduced Dig' could be a workable technique IF and only IF I keep off the land and that means raised beds with paths! It also means that I don't waste compost on ground that isn't growing crops, but that is another story.

Last and definitely not least, today I want to brag about my cloches, which is where this blog started.
Three weeks ago I pricked out some spring cabbage into a newly made bed and covered them with the glass barn cloches. Unfortunately the last plant in each row wasn't covered. However that has proved useful in demonstrating the advantages of protected cropping over unprotected. The cabbages under the cloches have grown on well, whilst those left outside have not really grown at all, and the weather has not been that bad yet! Oh yes, the white powder is a bit of lime, the slugs don't like crossing it and helps protect the plants whilst they are young.
Well hopefully the photo will show the difference between protected (top) and not (bottom).
Thanks for the visit, I'll endeavor to write more often and get some more pics up soon. Richard