Dehydrated Pineapple Battle: Canned versus Fresh (Part 2)

The fresh and canned pineapple I started to dehydrate a couple days ago didn't take long to dry. The fresh pineapple was done faster, but that's probably because I cut the pieces thinner than the canned stuff.

In terms of flavor, both the canned and fresh are very good. If I have to cast a definitive vote, I guess it would be for the fresh pineapple simply because the canned pineapple is almost too cloyingly sweet.

Dried fresh pineapple

Dried canned pineapple

It was pretty staggering how much the pineapple shrank in the dehydrator and how much water weight was lost. The fresh pineapple cost me $3 and dried down to only 5.6 ounces. The canned pineapple cost me $1.25 and dried down to 2.6 ounces. So in terms of value, the dried fresh pineapple cost 53.6 cents per ounce, while the dried canned pineapple cost 48.1 cents per ounce. Surprisingly, the canned pineapple was a better value. However, I bought the canned pineapple on sale. At regular price (about $1.50) the canned pineapple wouldn't have been the better value (at 57.7 cents per ounce).

P.S. I didn't weigh the dried mango, but it hardly amounted to anything! Making dried mango must be fairly expensive (but yummy).

Dehydrated Pineapple Battle: Canned versus Fresh (Part 1)

The first thing I wanted to make with my new food dehydrator was dried pineapple. I remember making this as a kid and it was very tasty. I was wondering if canned or fresh pineapple would be superior when dried (in terms of both value and flavor), so I'm putting them to the test.

The average 20 oz can of pineapple costs about $1 to $1.50 depending on the brand. The average fresh pineapple costs $3 to $4 depending on the season. After they are dehydrated I will do a taste test as well as compare the cost per dried ounce to see which is a better value. I'm also drying a mango just to see how it works out.

Mango, canned pineapple, fresh pineapple

One can of pineapple contains 10 rings

One fresh pineapple sliced into thin strips

Fresh and canned pineapple in my food dehydrator

Diagram Friday: Garden Square Footage

Layout of my 2011 vegetable garden

We recently had a warm spell here in Michigan. Temperatures around New Year's eve and New Year's Day got up to almost 55F! I took advantage of the warm weather to take some measurements of my garden and work on my chicken run a bit. Several people have asked me recently how many square feet of garden space I have. I never know what to say, partially because it increases every year.

After measuring all my beds, I calculated a grand total of approximately 706 square feet. This does not include my cut flower garden (the oval shaped bed in the diagram), which I might convert over to vegetables this year (cut flowers were NOT popular at the farmer's market last year).

706 square feet sounds like a lot of garden space, but that's tiny considering my yard is .71 acres (30,927 square feet)! That means I only have .023% of my yard in cultivation. I guess I need to get plowing this year and bump up my percentage a bit!

Farmer's Market Decision Making

With the new year in way, it's time to start planning my 2011 market garden. But before I do that, I need to decide what farmer's market(s) I'm going to sell at this year and decide if I need to scale up or scale down. 2010 was my first season as a market gardener. I learned a lot about planning ahead, harvesting, what customers tend to buy, what they shy away from, and customer habits.

Last year I sold exclusively at one particular market. This market was relatively new (in it's second season) and was in a lower income area.  Due to a combination of poor weather, overall low attendance, and lack of food-educated customers, my first market season was somewhat discouraging. If I continue at this market in 2011, it will be on a limited scale (only a few weekends over the course of the summer).

I've been looking at other options for selling my produce from the Green Zebra Market Garden. My options are:

1) Switch to a different market
2) Alternate between more than one market over the summer
3) Start my own CSA (community supported agriculture)
4) Bail out of the market gardener's game and grow vegetables entirely for my own pleasure

Option #1: Due to my commitments with graduate school, I'm am restricted to farmer's markets that are on Saturdays or Sundays. There are only two markets in my area that fit that schedule (one being the market I did last year). The second market is slightly farther away from me, but may have a larger customer base.

Option #2: I may lose customers loyalty if I'm not at the same market every weekend (not that I had any loyal customers), but maybe a two-market system will help balance out my gains and losses.

Washing mizuna for the farmer's market

Option #3: I would love to do my own CSA, but I'm not sure if my garden is large enough to support a CSA. I could offer only a limited number of shares, but even this might be tough. Growing enough food to fill just one CSA share each week would require me to have 4-6 different crops ready each week throughout the entire summer. I know from experience that some weeks there is plenty to offer, but other weeks there's almost nothing. As an aside, I could include fresh eggs in my farm shares starting in June or July (assuming there aren't any legal issues).

Another advantage of a CSA system is that there are no rainy market days. The worst part about doing a farmer's market is spending all the time and effort harvesting, washing, and packing up produce only to have it rain on market day. Generally sales are down and you end up bringing most of the produce back home with you. What am I supposed to do with 30 heads of unsold lettuce? Donating excess produce to a food pantry is always an option (and I have done this), but doesn't help me support my gardening passion (addiction?).

So much lettuce and no one to buy it...

Option #4: Participating in the farmer's market was a lot of fun last year. I got to do a ton of gardening and had a blast talking with customers about growing food, recipes, and community news. However, planning and running a market garden is stressful. You don't know for sure if crops will fail, if your vegetables will ripen on time, if it's going to thunderstorm on market day, if any customers are going to show up, etc.  I don't depend on the market garden for my personal income, so is it worth the time, effort and stress?

In another example: I love growing heirloom tomatoes. However, the customers at my farmer's market don' like buying them! Many of my customers have never seen a non-red tomato before. The customers in my area tend to buy the usual bright red hybridized beefsteak tomatoes (you know, the ones that look exactly like the ones at Walmart). Anything unusual in color or shape doesn't tend to sell very well. Should I cater to customer preference and stop growing the kinds of plants that I love?

Gardening for personal pleasure is a lot less stressful  because you can grow exactly what you want. Also, if your crop isn't ripe by a specific day, no big deal...you eat it later when it's ready.

There are pros and cons to all four options. Luckily I don't have to decide immediately. Any wisdom or advice out there?

I put in an entire cut flower garden in 2010, but bouquets were a flop at the farmer's market!

Unschooled

Clearance Amaryllis

I picked up two Amaryllis bulbs while after-Christmas shopping. One bulb is 'Minerva' and the other is 'Appleblossom'. I haven't grown an Amaryllis in probably 10-15 years, so hopefully I'll be successful. If I remember correctly, they initially grow and flower just fine, but keeping them alive afterwards (or getting them to re-flower) can be tricky.

Any suggestions on getting these to re-bloom?

Amaryllis Appleblossom (L) and Minerva (R)

The roots on the Appleblossom bulb are much more plump and healthy looking than the Minerva bulb. It will be interesting to see how they perform.

Gifted Ingredients

I asked Santa for dried cherries, almonds, and pecans this Christmas and I got almost two pounds of each!

I see biscotti, pecan pie, and cherry chocolate chip cookies are in my near future...

I also asked for this food dehydrator to make my own jerky, dried tomatoes, dried cherries, and other dried fruits and vegetables. I can't wait to get started.