It makes sense and "cents" to grow and dry your own herbs!
When I lived at Heartsease Cottage, my old Folk Victorian farmhouse in Utah, I grew a large medicinal and culinary herb garden. Now, I live in a condo at the edge of the woods in Northern Idaho and still have an herb garden. It's not as large, and it's mostly now made up of culinary herbs that I've tucked into a few spots in the common gardens that surround the building I live in.
Beneath these topiary crab apples on either side of the walkway going to the front entrance, I've planted sage, thyme, chives, parsely, burnet, tarragon, and lavender. Most are still small, but can be harvested. A couple orris iris will become more robust in time. In other gardens I've slipped in horehound, lemon balm, motherwort, catmint, violets, and lovage. I simply must have herbs wherever I live!
It makes sense to grow your own herbs! It's become quite expensive for those small jars and tins of irradiated, mostly flavorless sticks that pass for herbs at the supermarket. Before planting sage, I purchased a jar and paid around $8:00 for an herb that is so easy and productive to grow.
If you simply can't or don't want to grow your own, I've found that the cello-packaged herbs found in the produce area and ethnic aisle of the market are a better buy and more flavorful.
Homegrown herbs, gently dried, are tastier, and, you can dry what you think you'll need, replacing them each year, instead of having a cabinet full of old, flavorless dregs that most of us are loathe to toss because of the investment needed to replace them each year, as should be done.
Dried leafy herbs should be replaced each year in the Fall. Their flavor fades faster than seeds such as poppy, celery, lovage, mustard, etc. Spices made of roots - ginger and tumeric - last several years, as do those made from bark, pods, or berries such as nutmeg, mace, vanilla bean, and cinnamon.
Tins and jars of homegrown and dried herbs make nice Holiday and hostess gifts, too, as does a bouquet of fresh herbs in a water-filled pint or quart Mason jar with a twine or ribbon bow.
After gathering my herbs I remove any yellowed or tatty leaves, then rinse them of dust and organic debris under running water and give them a few dunks in large mixing bowl of water. After a gentle shake to remove dripping water I lay them on clean dry towels so most of the remaining moisture will air dry.
I've gathered sage, thyme, and tarragon to dry for Winter use.
After they're mostly dry I tie them in bundles of three or four sprigs with kitchen string and hang them where they can dry for two to four weeks. They'll be fully dried and crumbly when ready to store.
Grill work or a potting rack, cabinet knobs, hooks, the edges of exposed shelves are good places to hang herbs for drying. Hooks hanging the bundles may be fashioned from rebar wire or paperclips that have pulled open and made into double-ended hooks . Sage and thyme hang from an antique cooling rack off an old coal cook stove that now decorates my kitchen.
Even the candle sconces in the dining room are pressed into service for drying a bundle of sage each!
Most leafy herbs I dry in bundles. Tarragon is an exception. If dried in bundles it tends to turn brown. Flavor isn't affected. However, it's less appetizing looking. Instead, I zip tarragon leaves from their branches and dry them on waxed paper-covered trays.
Some leaves will still turn brown, but dried off the branch, fewer do. Trays of tarragon are set on the top of the fridge until the leaves are completely dry, then they're put into small jars for storage. Small Mason jars or clean herb jars work well.
The easiest way to remove the dried leaves from their stems is to hold each bundle over a large mixing bowl between both palms of your hands and rapidly roll the bundle back and forth between your palms. The leaves will fall into the bowl. Sort through the leaves and remove any tough stems that may have fallen with the leaves before storing in jars.
The empty stem bundles can be used as fire starters that will lend an herbaceous fragrance when burned or tossed on the coals.
By growing my own herbs I have fresh herbs to use Spring, Summer, and Fall. By harvesting my own herbs and drying them before Winter snows fly I have high quality dried herbs to use until they come out of dormancy in the Spring.
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I've fashioned utensil hooks - both light- and heavy-duty from rebar wire for my pot rack. The bundle of thyme in the center of this photo hangs from a paperclip I bent into a double-ended hook.
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