welcome back to the california gardener today we're gonna pick some of our nectarines we've got tons on the tree the birds are pecking at them already they're getting ripe we have a whole bunch falling on the ground so what do you do with your nectarines when you have way too many thin thin amount and you want to preserve some well today we're gonna dry some nectarines so see how we do that so what we're looking for is the ripe nectarines the ones that are the ones that are soft and squishy just like that right kelly are those yummy she's like i picked one right how does it taste is it good i guess that speaks for itself she can't even take it out of her mouth okay so we're gonna pick some nectarines i'm gonna pick some nectarines here we're looking for the ones that are nice and soft have any bug damage or anything because those ones will spoil so they have to be a nice perfect nectarine that is nice and soft okay so these are about the different sizes these are about as big as they get on this tree you know two and a half inch fruit they're very nice though good for eating so we have our bowl of nectarines picked we're going to take them in and get them ready for the dryer i've already rinsed off my lemons they're pretty good size just split them in half and then do a little twist lemon juice and we're going to juice them all so that we can spread some of our lemon juice on the nectarines okay so we've got about a cup full of lemon juice now so that should be great so we'll get on to cutting some nectarine these nectarines are really ripe so what i'm doing is i'm just cutting them in half and doing doing a little twist gently to not pull the skin off and one half always comes off the seed so then i'm splitting this half by cutting it down there so we have two pieces and then i'm gonna dry those two half flat like that and then the other side is hard to cut off so what i'm doing is i'm just cutting it in little wedges off the seed because it comes off easier so we're gonna have dried wedges and then dried half what i've done now is i've dumped my nectarine wedges into a bowl of lemon juice i'm gonna let them sit in there for a few minutes and i'm gonna spread them out on the tray to prepare them for drying as for my half neck greens i'm just going to take a little brush and spread some of that lemon juice on them and see which way it works better i'm just going to spread some lemon juice on these ones like this okay so we have our first two trays here already coated in lemon juice we soaked these ones on the right the wedges laid them all out and then the halves we kind of wiped the lemon juice on them with a brush so we're gonna stack up the rest the trays like this so now i'm just assembling all the trays together stacking them up here there's five trays in all i've done both slices and halves and we're gonna see how they turn out so make sure they stack well i want to get it stacked just right so the air flows right now that we have them all piled up they're nice i'm going to grab the lid we're gonna put the lid on top just like that and then since i'm going to bed i'm just gonna put them on low and leave them overnight and see how they are in the morning and you might have to leave it on for 12 hours or more but they should be dried out okay so they've been in for about i don't know how much long 14 hours i think i cut the wedges a little bit too thick the halves were sliced well and as you can see uh this was just on low heat these are the halves actually the lemon juice worked really well you see they're still bright yellow and the rack is disappearing my baby and everyone else is eating honey too so they're really good look at all these they're dried up really nicely so i think you could try that use lemon juice and then you don't have to use any inorganic compounds to keep them fresh so and there's the wedges so they dried up well too so they taste really good even though you dipped them in lemon juice they're not too sour they're still sweet and leathery just like they should be so give it a try just like i showed you so we have our bowl of nectarines picked we're going to take them in and get them ready for the dryer cali are you afraid of that siren going by how does that nectarine taste yummy yummy you gonna give me a bite thank you let's take him inside welcome back to the california veggie gardener today we're here with little kalia hello we're going to plant some eggplants and peppers in a small portion of garden that dries out a lot sometimes the seeds don't pop up so we're going to put some landscape fabric down to help keep the moisture in and a little bit of mulch on top right cali