The Dehydrator

Using dried herbs and flowers in winter months, rather than fresh, can be a great way to keep your diet more seasonal, just like eating squash in the fall and tomatoes in the summer. We rely on dried goods to carry the farm through to spring, when we finally have fresh greens and herbs.

Jackie Sommer gives a tour of the dehydrator at Purple Sage Farms.

Transcript of the Tour

Hi Everyone! This is the dehydrator at Purple Sage Farms, and I'm going to take you on a little tour inside.

It's pretty simple, we dehydrate our herbs inside the dehydrator. We put down the paper to help with any moisture, and we just lay the herbs on top of the paper.

And then have these large fans that circulate air through this space.

This dehydrator was built by Tim Sommer. It used to be a walk-in cooler, from one of our restaurant accounts, and it has been refurbished now, to serve a different purpose.

There is about a hundred pounds of fresh product in here that is then converted into dried product each time.

It's really important to the farm to have this capacity to save any fresh herbs that we're not selling fresh and be able to have some money over the winter by bringing in income through selling those dried herbs.

And then we can offer our products nation-wide, to people that are not in Idaho, where we are.

Simple as that.

Jackie, in front of the dehydrator with flowers, with Evelyn, 2021; Tim, in front of the newly built herb dryer, 2020 /Arlie Sommer