86 hours. That is how long that batch took to finish. By far the longest batch that we have run through the machine but for good reason. The door seal gasket needed cleaning to keep the vacuum low enough and so at 40 hours I had to clean it mid cycle along with an oil change on the pump. Once the second half of the cycle was started after the pit stop it ran flawlessly till the end. I am going to check all the connections today to make sure the trays are plugged in correctly and do a good cleaning of it before we get the next batch in. Out of this batch we got 5 trays of Minnesota midget melons dried weighing a total of 1.5 pounds. Of the 50 pounds of melon put through we have gotten 3 pounds of dried, that is a hell of a weight loss of water.
It took me a bit to get out to the garden as I was letting it warm up from the 34 F it had hit at sunrise. Most everything looked pretty good except the squash got hit a bit. There was even some cold damage to a few of the squash that were exposed to the air without a canopy of leaves over them. Not bad, just a few but still annoying to have happen. The cucumbers and tomatoes all came through perfectly fine with the row covers. I forgot to get up top to pull the cover from the melons but it wont hurt them to stay covered for a bit.
Despite the cool temps the summer squash gave me 16 pounds and has me only 57 pounds shy of 2000 just from squash. I will easily make that this year. Pretty astounding to me that I will have picked a ton of summer squash this year. I'm not sure if the garden has it in it to give me another 400 pounds to pass the 5000 pound mark for the year or not, but we shall see as it really depends on the weather.
I had to get beans picked for my order that I deliver shortly. I needed 30 pounds which took me a bit to get as I had to be a bit more choosy since I have let the beans go a bit. Many of them have gotten to be to old and I need to pick them to dry for dry beans. Hopefully after I pick through they will regrow for me to get more for the end of the season. I've picked 612 pounds and sold 594 pounds this year and the garden should be able to keep producing.
I had to get the trailer ready for this morning as I have to go get grain along with my delivery to the co-op. It's handy being able to do both in one trip.
Much of our evening was spent in the spa. My back got a serious knot in it that took me quite a while to work out. The best thing is using the Theracane on knots while the jets pound against the knots. It is like a combo therapy and did a solid job of working the knots out. I ended up going to sleep with little pain in my back. I really should be able to write this thing off as a medical expense.
I will be heading out soon to pickup more barrels of grain and then drop off the co-op order of 240 pounds butternut squash, 30 pounds beans, and 80 cucumbers. I have to get the freeze dryer going on the next batch of whatever will go bad soonest which is likely the melons if they are ripe enough or the grapes, maybe both since they have equal water content.
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