Herbs are a beautiful and tasty addition to any garden. They do well in poor soil, and they can also attract pollinators.
Frequent herb harvesting is important to prevent them from bolting, which changes their flavor and texture. Once you notice an herb is flowering, it’s time to harvest.
If you have more herbs than you know what to do with, Garden Variety’s experts have tips to help you preserve those flavors for months to come.
Dry your herb harvest
Cindy Haynes, professor of horticulture at Iowa State University, prefers hang-drying most of her herbs.
“I will harvest them in little bunches. Those bunches are about six to eight inches long and I'll tie three or four stems together, and I usually hang them somewhere, kind of in a dark, well ventilated, warm location for a couple of weeks,” Haynes said. “Then I will strip the leaves, and then we'll kind of crush them and put them into spice jars.”
If you hang dry your herbs, be sure to hang them in small bunches so they dry fast, otherwise they get moldy and you'll have to dispose them.
Aaron Steil, Iowa State University Extension horticulture specialist, dries his herbs using old window screens.
“They can overlap a little bit at the beginning because they shrink down so much. But I usually end up stripping — like for large-leafed things like sage and basil — I'll strip the leaves off of the stem right away,” Steil said. “And for other stuff, like oregano and thyme, that's really tedious, so I don't do it at that point, but I lay it out in a single, roughly a single, layer on a screen. I have several screens that I can stack on top of each other, so they don't take up too much room.”
Steil says that if the conditions are dry enough this drying process can take four weeks, but if it's more humid it could take six weeks.
“It is really important to make sure that they are fully dry. It would be much better to leave them there a little bit longer than to try to rush the process,” he said. “As soon as you store them — you know you want to store them in a nice seal, tight, usually glass jar or plastic jar — you want it to be tight, and if there's any moisture at all, you will get a lot of mold growth and things like that.”
If you want to dry your herbs, but don't have space or the space time for hang drying or air drying naturally, there are electric drying rack options as well. They can condense the space and time it takes to dry your herbs. However, be aware of the temperature setting you use, as if the temperature is too hot you can end up "baking" the herbs, impacting their flavor.
Freeze the flavor
Haynes also recommends a different method of preservation for basil using a food processor and ice cubs.
“I like using basil in soups and stews and pestos and other things during the winter. So I will harvest a lot of basil, strip the leaves, put it in a food processor with just a little bit of water, just enough water to kind of make it all processed, so that I can pour it into ice cube trays, and then I freeze it. I like that method for basil, because it maintains that kind of green color. And then I can just pop out a couple of ice cubes and throw them in tomato soup and make tomato basil soup.”
Think ahead for holidays and special occasions
If there's someone in your life so deserving of this labor of love, consider gifting them a spice mix!
Steil makes Herbs de Provence mixes to utilize the spoils of his garden, and gifts them during the holidays. The mix typically includes thyme, basil, rosemary, tarragon, savory, marjoram, oregano and bay leaf. Another mix you could make is Italian Seasoning, using rosemary, basil, oregano and thyme.
Hayes says she has personally benefited from Steil’s spice gifts and often uses them to make herb butter.
Read this ISU Extension and Outreach article for more information on growing herbs in your garden.
