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1. Cherry Punch tomatoes:
This is an excellent tomato plant. I brought one of these tomatoes back with me when we went to my house. It was loaded with cherry tomatoes. Then, I thought it was done for, dying, and now it has new growth and one blossom open and others to open. It is indeterminate and appears to defy this hot weather. This is the tomato with more vit. C than other tomatoes and is for containers and for growing inside in the winter.

2. rightly, there is a rain gauge here that is electronic. The rain goes through it, doesn't collect in it, and the amount is displayed on an inside the house gizmo. It wasn't being used by Bob, but as you know, you and I can't live without a rain gauge, so Bob got it out and set it up and we may have rain today or in the next several days. Anyway, when it does rain, I'll know how much.

3. Johnny, you said Conroe had too much humidity to use a dehydrator to save/store food, but now, I'm up here where you are, so I can store food using a dehydrator and I don't have one. I know some of you on this thread use that method, so I'm asking for names of dehydrators that you know work, are good, are bad, anything you know about these machines before I get one.

I have an excalibur dehydrator. I love love love it. Mainly because it has an adjustable temperature setting so you can dry things at different temperatures.

I’ve dried bananas from the grocery store special sale bin, pineapples, tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, mushrooms, carrot shreds, and even arcane things like marshmallows (dry them till they’re no longer ‘tacky’ on the outside and then place them immediately in a ziploc baggie to cool so they don’t take moisture back up).

I’ve used the dried tomatoes, onions and garlic to make powders for use in seasoning/cooking. We love to add tomato powder to rice along with dehydrated veggie chunks (tomatoes, peppers, onions, mushrooms etc). My kids especially love this.

I use the Nesco American Harvest dehydrator because it has controllable temperature, that you can set to the type of food you are dehydrating.

I also have nesting screens on frames that I use for outdoor sun drying.

I'm not much on specific gear... if I don't have what I need, I'll make something from the junk pile. ;)

/johnny

We had great luck this year with three tomatoes:

1. Tomato "Big Rainbow"

2. Tomato "Cherokee Purple"

3. Tomato "Black Cherry Heirloom"

I'm going to order your "Cherry Punch" tomato seeds for next year.

Thanks for the info.

We got an Excalibur 9-tray dehydrator upon the recommendation of JustaDumbBlonde and have been very satisfied with it for two years. A friend had a Nesco (I think that’s the brand name) and it gave out under heavy use. Alton Brown described a much less expensive method for dehydrating on one of his shows. I’ll look for that episode and PM the URL to you if I can locate it.

I just picked up my dehydrator from Walmart and it’s ok, but I don’t necessarioy recommend it. It’s cheap and has worked ok so far. I just wanted to try out some stuff, but It has no bells and whistles.

If I were able to go back in time, I would buy one that had the trays to use for fruit leathers.

If your oven has a low temp setting, it can even be used to dehydrate stuff too.

The only thing I have made in my oven so far is beef jerky and croutons.