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  • From: Chad Knepp <pyg@galatea.org>
  • To: pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [pcplantdb] off topic: dehydrators, sustainability
  • Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2004 14:18:57 -0500

Well, it's raining today. Might as well stay in do email and learn
about zope.

Lawrence F. London, Jr. writes:
> Chad Knepp wrote:
>
> > I'm too tired to respond to the other stuff. I just finished a 12
> > hour day of building a 96 square foot solar dehydrator. Ok, tomatoes,
> > bring it on!
>
> Could you post design info on this plus graphics maybe?
>
> Dimensions, materials, plumbing/electrical/glazing/mechanical needs?
>
> Is this a standalone building?

I would love to write an article about this style of dehydrator
complete with digital images for some future version of HG. Problems:
No camera and HG is a long way from ready.

I've been playing with solar dehydrators for the last 2 years and
think this is a pretty optimal design for the humid midwest. It's
probably too powerful for drier climates as it has a 1 to 1 ratio of
colector to drying surface. I got the idea from
<http://www.permapak.net/solarfooddryers.htm>. A yucky site, but the
idea is pretty good. My design has evolved quite a bit from this.
For one I make smallish portable units 3'x4' or 4'x4' that can track
the sun and be stored in the winter. I also put the bottom sheet of
metal much lower or don't use it at all to increase air circulation.
They still get plenty hot. Now there are 192 square feet of this type
of dehydrator in the area... gosh, I lived in a smaller apartment in
college.

I'm planning an open house and sustainable technology demonstration
for early August. This isn't a serious sort of thing, but I want to
show folks what I've been up to. In addition to the dehydrators the
domestic technologies will include ground tempature
refrigerators/coolers, cob and brick wood cookstove (the latest is a 4
burner model with a dedicated hot water heater and canner), a thermal
mass solar oven (20 loaf capacity), hot boxes, and vermiculture.

I have also some agriculture experiments that I'm writing proposals
for. The most interesting one is something I haven't thought of a
good name for. It's based on my observations while doing more
conventional farming that if you miss part of a windrow while making
hay it will be around the following year possibly fouling your mower.
Last summer here at DR the ultimate frisbee [freaks] mowed their field
when the grass was kind of tall. It made clumps of grass that instead
of tripping on they threw outside the field. I noticed one pile still
around this spring and after planting sweet corn in my own garden I
walked over and stuck 10-15 seeds through the mulch. If only I had a
camera! It's a little shorter but tasseling and might even make sweet
corn if that small of an amount will pollinate. The crazy thing is
that it looks better than most other corn around here (except for mine
of course ;-) and it took less than a minute of my time. Anyway, the
possibilities of what you could do by mowing grassland, concentrating
it, letting it kill off the sod/decompose, and planting into it have
got me all excited. As a side note, I got a European style scythe
from scythesupply.com and I can't say enough good things about it.
I've put in over 40 hours on it in the last month mostly for fun and
to generate mulch for my garden and others. Another interesting
ag. thing I've been working on is a sort of a hand *no-till drill*.
Ever figure out a good way to direct seed into heavy mulch? It's
still in early development but I've planted kale through about 12" of
course grass. I got great germination but unfortunately the drill
didn't make a large enough hole in mulch to let the kale back out.
I'm going to modify it with an eccentric fin/wedge so that twisting it
will create a larger opening.

Anyway, if any of you are in north east Missouri in early August stop
in for a tour, 95 degree heat, and some bourbon.

--
Chad Knepp
python -c 'import base64;print base64.decodestring("cHlnQGdhbGF0ZWEub3Jn")'




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