DIY Herb Drying

When Tim and I were designing our gardens - it was essential that we had a herb garden right outside our back door.  What we love about summer cooking is being able to step outside the kitchen and pick any herb we would need for recipes.  In addition, we grow a lot of extra herbs for tea blends that we make and we added blueberry bushes and an apple and pear espalier.  We need to add raised lettuce beds out there next summer.  However, we started picking herbs to dry and store this past weekend.  The best thing about this is that we know that the herbs are pesticide free. 

For DIY dried herbs, simply do the following.

1. Harvest your herbs. Make sure you cut herbs in the morning, before the heat of the afternoon sun wilts the leaves.

2. Tie bundles of herbs together at the stems, using thin twine or ribbon.

3. Hang your bundles to dry in a cool, dark place. We hang dry our herbs in the basement or we use pasta racks in the kitchen.  Hang drying takes a week to a few weeks, depending on the moisture level of the herbs and moisture levels in the air. Check on your herbs every few days, and once they are dry and crumbly to the touch, remove any twigs or sticks and crush the leaves (you can use a fine sieve for this too).

4. Store your dried herbs in small glass jars with tight fitting lids or corks.  We like the jars with the chalkboard paint lids so you can write on them.