Tom Connolly

I live in the Pacific Northwest now and am getting near the harvest time here.  I don't have access to land now to grow much of any veggies or fruits, so I want to take advantage of some not-so-close organic farms that will be selling in bulk.  I will be canning some produce - first time ever.  I have also been looking at plans for a diy solar powered dehydrator.  There are some great ideas out there - including the one listed on this site ;)   I am looking for ideas to make trays on the cheap.  I need them to be:
a. easy to clean and keep sanitary.  My first attempt will only be fruits and vegetables.  I have a dehydrator that I purchased that I will use to do meat and fish.
b. not leaching any kinds of toxins (materials or paint)
c. reusable - I want to learn the "art" of dehydrating foods and continue to use it over the years.  
d. cheap - the cabinet will have a 1.6m height (lots of the same produce at one time) so I am looking at 20+ trays.  

Anything with liquids will be dehydrated in the dehydrator that I purchased.  

Repurposing materials would be a wonderful bonus.  

"The option of dragging a greenhouse to a spring, summer, and fall location to catch the best intensity and radiance of the sun offers many advantages."

Yes, in my case, all I would have to do is rotate the trailer slightly.

Definitely support!  

I am thinking about this design and the choices of features in the list of things to put in a 4 season greenhouse:
https://alaskamastergardener.community.uaf.edu/2021/03/26/building-a-four-season-greenhouse/

Snow is almost not an issue at all where I live, but temps do drop to freezing or below, the wind can be quite strong and it rains often.  

Also modifying a trailer to look like this would still maintain the structural integrity of the trailer.

The roll of the dice finds me in the great Pacific Northwest of the US, living in a rented home.  I would love to begin the process of gardening with an aim to being (mostly) self sufficient, but there are two problems: 1st, I have no land.  While winters are fairly mild up here, the growing season is short.  

I often see people selling travel trailers for cheap, if not completely free.  My idea would be to replace about half of the roof with transparent material, and half of the walls (but only the top 4 feet of the wall) with transparent materials.  The parts of the roof that were not transparent would be potential sites for PV panels, so the trailer would not need any external source of energy.  Parts of the walls would be covered with solar hot water heaters, so that I could keep a fairly constant temperature from October to March.

Any thoughts?  I like the idea that I would be re-using a huge amount of resources by using an old travel trailer.

How would your project be if you were to cut one of the sidewalls out - put a piece of cardboard on the bottom of the remaining sidewall - and then fill the "bucket" you have made?  If you could find an "easy" way to cut the side wall out, it would make it easier to fill the tire.

Been reading a lot on the www about straw to update my knowledge.  I read a lot of "stuff" and would like to get some kind of consensus here.  I am looking to insulate a pole barn type building and considering straw as the material.  How do I get the highest r value out of straw?  Is there one kind of straw that produces a higher insulation value?  Is there a specific dryness that makes it more effective?  Does the degree of compaction raise or lower the r value?  How about using clay slipe?   Heaven forbid, what about mixing in repurposed styrofoam, putting it into a burlap sack and then pressing to the desired degree of compression and shape?  The building will mostly be used for utility purposes - will work in them but not live, but am hoping to get an r value of 10 in the wall to keep it comfy.

I have perused a number of forums and people seem to only be using PV panels on their roof to generate electricity and then using electricity to make hot water.  Seems like a waste to me.  I will be buying an 18' travel trailer soon and will put pv panels on top - should be reasonably easy to be self sufficient, given the small amount of electricity that I use.  I will use propane to heat and cook but it would be nice to not have to use electricity or propane to generate hot water. I think I will have an 8' by 3' area that I can use to install a hot water system.   Any thoughts?