Hanging vs. dehydrating Herbs

I am typically a seed saver but for the past few years I seem to have neglected to dry my herbs. So when I put some "winterizing" into my garden yesterday. I decided it was time to dry some herbs.

I cut my stalks of tarragon and hung it to dry on the cast iron pots over the stove.




























Then I broke out my dehyrator and set to work.
First the oregano















I bagged the oregano and then started on the thyme.















I was surprised at how quickly the dehyrator worked.

Now I just need to decide, to hang the rosemary or to dehydrate?

40 Apples a day

I realized last night that I am processing at least 40 apples a day. I think this should continue through next week since I still have 2 large bins to get through.

The picture on the left is yesterdays apple butter. I like it even though it was oven baked for about 6 hours. I finally got around to canning it at 11:00 last night! The recipe, "Marion's Apple Butter" is from Preserving the Harvest by Carol Costenbader.

I am also making dehydrated apple rings for the kids snacks. I can fit about 8 apples at a time in my dehydrator. It takes about all day to dehydrate them completely. The picture below is the batch Daughter helped me get going yesterday afternoon. I had to turn them off when I went to bed, so they are finishing up right now!