When it comes to second-hand building materials,
the city and the suburbs are absolutely chockers with them,
and all you need to do
is flick your thinking a bit,
because instead of seeing all of this as rubbish,
it's actually a valuable resource
waiting to get a new life in your garden.
So for these resources here, it's showtime.
They're gonna become part of a solar dehydrator for fruit and veg.
And I've got the project underway.
When it comes to having too much produce -
that could be an overloaded pear tree,
heaps and heaps of tomatoes -
you can add salt and sugar to it,
turn it into chutneys, jams, preserves,
maybe even some sauerkraut.
But there's another way that uses simply the power of the sun.
I've been working on a simple design for the solar dehydrator.
Jump onto the Gardening Australia website
for a list of materials, tools and instructions
to help you build your own.
The main thing about a project like this is giving it a go,
and you might think, "Where do I begin?
"How do I create a frame and legs and all these things?"
Well, one way to solve the problem is use a table.
I picked this one up off the street.
It's got steel legs,
and it's the perfect building block to create my frame,
because everything's pretty much level.
Then what I did was raid my resource centre
and get some timbers, some offcuts.
Now, remember, when you're using second-hand timbers,
they're gonna be a little bit rock'n'roll,
it's not gonna necessarily join perfectly.
So I always use a clamp,
and that holds it in position for when I screw
and will bring it back to square it up.
I've got these galvanised screws.
I'll just put this last one on.
The next step is to put in this corrugated iron.
It's a classic offcut. You find these everywhere.
It fits snugly, but I'm not fastening it to the table,
because that way, I can lift it out if I want
and clean it.
This corrugated iron is the engine room of the dehydrator
because the dark colour -
and if yours isn't dark, you can always paint it black -
but that absorbs the heat
and then it re-radiates that heat
back up through your fruit and veg to dry them.
Just as important as heat is airflow.
I'm drilling a few ventilation holes along one side of the frame.
The evaporated moisture from fruit and veg
has to go somewhere.
We don't want it getting humid in there.
Now I'm stapling some flyscreen netting
over the ventilation holes just to keep the critters out.
The staples won't go right into this piece of hardwood offcut,
so I'm just buckling them over with the hammer.
The next level of the dehydrator
is the drying platform.
To get it up above the corrugated iron,
I've just got these old architraves that slip in easily there.
And then I went and picked up some old flyscreens.
I replaced the netting with this nice fresh net
and I cut them down to size
so that they fit perfectly and sit on the rails.
A piece of glass this size has a bit of weight to it,
but this is the window to the sun.
Now, the thing to remember
with whatever your glass frame is,
you've got to be careful at this next stage
where you start to apply fixings such as these hinges.
I pre-drilled the holes and put the screws in carefully.
No sudden, hard pushing or movement
so that you don't put a big split in your glass,
'cause that would be tragic,
because you don't want to have to go and buy a piece of glass.
The idea is that we're re-using this perfectly good glass.
It's critical you get a good seal
between the glass and the timber frame
so that you don't let insects in to spoil the fruit.
If it's not snug, use a rubber or brush seal.
Couple of wheels in place,
and this solar dehydrator can roll around like a wheelbarrow
anywhere the sun goes.
I'm using a grinder to cut the front legs down.
Perfect.
Well, have a look at it.
With the legs chopped down at the front,
we've now got the angle,
and what that does is that has a low point and a high point,
and the hot air will rise and move through,
and that creates the circulation so there's no humidity.
The best time to use your dehydrator is on a bright, sunny day
when you can take advantage of all of that free powerful energy.
Fruit and veg with a lower moisture content will dry quicker.
Prepare produce as if you were going to eat it.
The key to it is to slice thinly and evenly.
In fine, sunny weather,
the dehydrator will reach temperatures
of between 50 and 60 degrees,
and will comfortably dehydrate a kilo of fruit in a day.
(BRIGHT MUSIC)
Whoa! You can feel the warmth coming out of there.
You'll know when it's time to remove the fruit
when it get a pliable, sort of leathery texture.
(BRIGHT MUSIC CONTINUES)
Mm!
Store the fruits of your labour in airtight containers like this,
and you can build a pantry of bounty.
The main thing is
when you take on a little weekend project like this,
put it to use.
Get that thing dehydrating and filling jars.