How to make your own Stevia sweetener
Stevia is an ultra sweet sweetener that has no calories and is grown natively for ages in South America that is 300 times more sweet than other sweeteners. The good news you can grow your own in your backyard and make some in your own backyard.
How to make dried basil
Jul 10, 2010 basil, dehydrator, herbs
Summer has finally appeared here in the Pacific Northwest with temperatures in the 90s I decided this would be a good time to dry some herbs in the garage given it was already at the right drying temperature without any heating required.
Here is the basic steps to harvest, dry, and store your own dried basil.
Tags: herb garden, herbs
How to clone your own herbs in your garden
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![032[6]](http://www.cheapvegetablegardener.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/03261.jpg "032[6]")
Cloning herbs is an inexpensive and fast way to expand your herb garden. This is also a great method to possible give or receive (with permission of course) from friends/neighbors.
Unlike cloning other organisms, plants have a much simpler procedure you can do in your kitchen.
1. Take cutting from mother plant. Cut a stem of total length of about 4-5 inches, cutting 1/2 inch above a leaf node. The leaf node is where the leaves attach to the stem. You want to make this cut at 45 degrees with a sharp knife/razor blade/shears.
Tags: herb garden, herbs
How to make dried oregano
This winter I went through my spice rack (which was given as a wedding gift 11 years ago) and threw out any spices I have yet to open and took inventory of spices I have at least used half of the container. These herbs were added to my growing list which one of which was oregano.
Tags: cheap, herb garden, oregano
Ultimate Aquaponics setup
Jun 7, 2010 herbs, hydroponics, indoor growbox
I actually thought I already posted about this bad boy which unfortunately is only a design concept from Philips. For those that are not familiar:
Aquaponics /ˈækwəˈpɒnɨks/ is the symbiotic cultivation of plants and aquatic animals in a recirculating environment.
Aquatic animal effluent (for example fish waste) accumulates in water as a by-product of keeping them in a closed system or tank (for example a recirculating aquaculture system). The effluent-rich water becomes high in plant nutrients but this is correspondingly toxic to the aquatic animal.
Source Wikipedia
More Fun with Food Dehydrator
May 9, 2010 dehydrator, herbs, strawberries
I decided to be adventurous with the food dehydrator and grabbed some stuff from the refrigerator to make some nice nutritional snacks.
I started with some strawberries, the process is very simple, take some strawberries slice about 1/4 inch thick and place on the tray.
Next I moved on to apples which I soaked in a solution of lemon juice (about 1/4 cup) with 1 cup of water. To add a little extra sweetness I also dumped in a packet of artificial sweetener to reduce the sourness from lemon. After letting the apples soak in this solution for about 3 minutes I added them to the tray.
After slicing bananas about 1/4 inch thick I also soaked these in the same lemonade bath I did for the apples for 3 minutes as well.
Finally I spliced some watermelon at the same approximately 1/4 inch thickness while removing as many seeds as possible and then placing the slices on the trays and moving them into the dehydrator preheated at 100 degrees F.
After about 24 hours the apples were ready and very delicious, these did not last wrong. Next came the strawberries which tasted ok, but were very difficult and basically not worth the time to attempt to wedge from tray and eventually gave up a through most of these away. This was followed by the watermelon which wasn’t quite as messy and tasted like semisweet candy with a light watermelon flavor which seems about right since watermelon does not have nearly as strong a flavor naturally as you would get in artificially sweetened gum or candy. Lastly were the banana chips which were good and were all eaten though for the long time required to dry I probably will opt to buy the non-fried version of these at the store.
Overall it was fun to make these but apples will probably be the only ones in a future rotation but looking forward to drying some garlic, onions, and herbs later this year.
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, garlic bulbs, herb garden, strawberry plants, vegetables
