How To Dehydrate Blueberries

 Food waste guilt. 

I'm not sure we all suffer with it, but I sure do! One of my good friends does as well. That's why when she messaged me "Want any blueberries - I've been given some and they're starting to go squishy," I knew to say no. 

The house was too hot for preserving (it was in this last heat wave), and I was busy. Last thing I wanted was some fruit I had to deal with straight away.

So I replied with a thanks but no thanks message. 

She turned up anyway. Ready to pass the food waste guilt over to me! 

Permaculture Soft Fruit?

I've been toying with an idea in my head for a few years now and wanted to experiment.

I garden with many different methods and never really stick to one, but if you're into organic gardening then sooner or later you're going to come across permaculture.

The wikipidia definition of permaculture is:-
"Permaculture is a set of design principles centered around whole systems thinking simulating or directly utilizing the patterns and resilient features observed in natural ecosystems. It uses these principles in a growing number of fields from regenerative agriculture, rewilding, community, and organizational design and development."

Temporary Cold Frame For Cuttings

On Thursday I had a bit of a frenzy on taking some cuttings. Trying to increase my stocks of rosemary, sage, bay, blueberries, goji berries and a few others for free. 

Quick fix cold frame

I've no idea if they will all work or if it's the right time for all of them, bay for one I'd imagine would be better in the autumn but it's worth a shot as I'm doing others and had everything set up.

A gritty sandy mix for the cuttings (I mixed up an ericaious one for the blueberries)

Rosemary cutting with the bottom leaves stripped away

Once I'd finished with the cuttings I needed somewhere to keep them. Most books say a plastic bag over the top or a cold frame out of direct sunlight. I decided that a cold frame would be better so I found a few sheets of old corrugated perspex saved from a job and set about building a temporary one on our north facing patio.

All the cuttings under my temporary, quick fix cold frame.

This turned out to be a little bit simple, even for me. I stacked the quarry tiles that I've got saved for when we build the porch and then added one of the sheets on the top and front weighted down with a few more tiles.

Temporary cold frame

Hopefully this should work well, it's easy for me to water them and as it's by the house I should be more inclined to keep an eye on them. One day I'll get round to building some proper cold frames, with brick sides and glass tops, but that's some way off yet!

What else should I be taking cuttings of at the moment? Anyone else built a temporary cold frame like this?