It all depends upon the material you are drying and the climate you are in. If you are in a dry location like Arizona, you live in a natural dehydrator. If you live if a moist place like me, a food dehydrator is required for drying some things. I have found it is impossible for me to dry these without a food dehydrator: parsley, basil, ragweed, chives, leeks, chilis, and I'm sure I'm forgetting others at the moment. It does make quicker work of roots like dandelion and dock. But there are others with I always lay on screens to dry, like lemon balm. I find the dehydrator on the lowest possible setting "bakes" the lemon balm and others too much. So my suggestion, experiment. Try small amounts in different ways and see how well and fast they dry. See if you are happy with the results. Quick drying without "baking" your herbs is key to preserving their quality. FataMorgana

^^ 2) its fine. You can harvest either the bottom or top at anytime but not both together if you want Basil to regenerate. Since I already resurrected an old thread, I might as well add my two cents to the flowering discussion. Generally, when flowering occurs, the leaves most immediate to the flower begin to lose their nutritional uptake. In many flowering plants (i.e. determinate tomatoes), this is visible as Browning of surrounding leaves. In Basil I guess its loss of flavor. Plants have basal metabolic rates proportional to their size, meaning that they can only conduct an X amount of metabolism at any one time. Flowering stresses the metabolism beyond normal basal metabolism, and because its a reproduction attempt (survival of the species through seed production), the priority is given to flowering (reproduction) over maintaining leaf physiology. Cutting the flower buds diminishes the flowering temporarily and gives resources back to the leaf as the plant attempts once again to develop flowers. In controlled environments, you can sustain vegetative growth indefinitely and inhibit flowering by setting a specific temperature and light hours. That's climate control, indoors under artificial lights.

Re: fruit leather. I stumbled across a way to make individual "fruit roll-ups" without needing the special trays, or the hassle of covering my trays in plastic wrap. I cut squares of baking parchment so that 4 fit per tray, then spread the fruit puree onto each square. Dehydrate as usual. The dried fruit leather easily peels off of the parchment, but to store, just toss the individual squares into a zipper bag, paper and all. DS LOVES the applesauce "fruit rollups" I made this wayâ¦easy to throw into his school lunches.

Generally, I only dry herbs for winter cooking. Usually, thyme, rosemary sprigs, winter savory, bay and sage leaves. Last year was my first time doing bay leaves, and I ran out before Christmas. This year I'll double the quantity I dry, but it's difficult because my bay tree is about 4 feet tall and I feel like I'm butchering it. Those other herbs are doomed for the winter anyway, so it's easier to harvest them. Last year I dehydrated some peppers for the firs time; Little Romanian Targu Mures peppers, which I later ground into hot paprika. It's been awesome to cook with paprika that I made myself, but I should probably cut it with a sweeter pepper for the next batch. Those Targu Mures aren't ferociously hot, but you certainly don't want to use them exclusively for a pot of goulash.