Dehydrating excess greens

[Volksvegan]

Buying a variety of greens for a small RT leaves me with lots of excess, even if we humans eat lots of salads. I'm sick of so much stuff going bad, so it dawned on me that I could try using my dehydrator and then crumble the dried greens to use as salad topper rather than waste them. If it works, I might even try dandelion flowers and other abundant weeds in the summer to use the following winter. Has anyone else tried this? I'll keep you posted on the results.

 

[bettinge]

I don't dry store bought greens, but I do dry weeds from the yard and mix them with Mazuri all winter long!

 

[Volksvegan]

I did a bunch of greens yesterday, just as a kind of experiment to see if it worked. Five layers of five different kinds of lettuces/greens:

All of this dried down into this:

Mind you, this is one of the larger jars, not the teeny ones. Smells incredible! So, it works, and I will definitely be drying a lots of weeds and flowers come summer to use next winter!

On another note, remember how we used to grow carrot tops as kids? I started some to give Ludwig when they get big:

 

[stinax182]

I'm pretty sure that dried greens have far less nutritional value than fresh ones. that goes for frozen as well.

 

[Volksvegan]

I'll just be using them as a top dressing.

 

[StarSapphire22]

I know a few members here (and myself) buy/make dehydrated weeds, etc. and mix with moistened commercial diets like Mazuri. I personally bought dried organic dandelion, blessed thistle, marshmallow, violet leaf, red clover, aloe vera, oatstraw, hibiscus, and plan on ordering a few more still. It's finely ground like the greens you made, and I put Mazuri and whatever herbs in a container, put in a small amount of water and once all the water is soaked up I mash it all up and serve. My hermanns loves it and it's great for winter feeding.

 

[Volksvegan]

Sounds great! I currently give Zoomed Grasslands pellets once a week as a topping, but I like the idea of mixing the dried greens in with it.