There are many ways to preserve fresh herbs and this week I tried them all! As cold weather fast approaches I needed to harvest and preserve all the herbs in my garden quickly before they froze. Of course fresh is the best way to use garden herbs, but I'm not willing to go without herbs all winter....so I went on an herb preserving spree.
At this point in time it's ok to harvest as much of the herbs as possible! Frost is just around the corner and anything not preserved will be lost after a good freeze, so go ahead and harvest all you want from perennial herbs.Because of the timing, I kinda went crazy. I ended up with baskets and baskets of basil, parsley, sage, mint, lemon balm, chives and more!
This week alone I froze herbs in oil, made herb vinegars, compound butters, herb salts, dried herbs and made herb flavored sugars with the herbs left in my garden. That is an amazing array of herbs for later use!
The herbs have been growing like mad in the garden and they are finally ready to harvest. I have been spending a lot of time harvesting and drying herbs over the last week and started to run out of room. Since my dehydrator was full, I started using my microwave to dry herbs and it is amazing!
I have one of those multi tray dehydrators and I use it all the time. It works really well, except it takes hours to dry each batch of fresh herbs and obviously it can only hold so much at a time.
When you use the microwave to dry herbs though, each batch is done in under 2 minutes. So you literally never run out of room since it's only just a minute or so till you can put a new batch of herbs in to dehydrate!
Plus it's really great to use the microwave to dry herbs instead of a dehydrator when it's already hot outside and I'm resisting turning on the AC. The microwave doesn't blow out warm air like a regular dehydrator does. When it's running for the 8 hours it takes to dry each batch of fresh herbs, that's a lot of extra heat.
Drying herbs in the microwave takes much less time than any other herb drying method. Plus, it's easy. It takes about the same amount of effort as using your car as a solar dehydrator...which is not much at all!
If you're anything like me you've spent the better part of the summer growing, harvesting and drying your own herbs. Growing your own herbs is a very cost effective way to stock your spice cabinet or herbal apothecary and drying them is simple enough that anyone can do it!
Now that you took the time to dehydrate all those fresh herbs, how do you store herbs so that they last the longest and are the most potent?
How to store dried herbs properly
There are 5 things that cause herbs to deteriorate:
- Air
- Heat
- Sunlight
- Moisture
- Time
To minimize the deterioration cause by the first 4 on the list, store your dried herbs in an airtight container in a cool, dark place. I like to store my dried herbs in glass and I use canning jars. I love that they come in all different sizes since some herbs I use a lot of and others I only use sparingly.
I store them in a cabinet down in my family room where it stays pretty cool year round.
Unfortunately because kitchens tend to get hot when cooking/baking they are probably the worst place to store dried herbs, especially if you keep dried herbs on the counter or in an herb display rack. If you can't store your herbs in a cabinet, try the tinted Ball jars to help keep light out.
I've always wanted to make a solar dehydrator. I've looked at solar dehydrator plans and kits but never really wanted to invest the money for a kit, or the time to build one myself. However, I love the idea of being able to dehydrate herbs without using electric. Plus, I dehydrate a lot of herbs in the summer and can always use extra space!
This past weekend I found a super simple solar method of drying herbs and I just have to tell you about it! Over the years I have used various methods of drying herbs including air drying by hanging, oven drying, microwave drying and my current favorite...using my dehydrator.
That is until now, because I have discovered that the easiest way to dry herbs is to simply leave them in your car! Yep, that's really all there is to it and I stumbled upon this quite by accident.
Cheapest solar drying method ever!
Last weekend we went to the Renaissance Festival down in Pittsburgh. The parking lot was a huge field and all along the outer edges were Red Clover plants. The basic rule of foraging is to not take too many and ask permission.
There really wasn't anyone around to ask, but this was a field they were slowly destroying by parking cars on it so I figured the unparked areas were fair game.
We were going into the festival and I was afraid if it was dark when I came out I would forget to grab a few, so I picked 1 perfect Red Clover blossom and placed it on my dashboard as a reminder. We locked up the truck and went into the festival for the next several hours.
This is the time of year that gardening really starts to drive me crazy. I spend so much time taking care of and babying my plants and they just seem to be growing so s-l-o-w-l-y! Thankfully there are herbs growing in that garden and many herbs are ready to harvest before the veggies come in!
English Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) is one of the first herbs I harvest each year. The pretty purple flowers make a lovely addition to many lotions, salves, sachets, aromatherapy items and even teas.Lavender can also be added to many dishes and most people don't realize that it is edible. Of course there are different varieties of Lavender and some are more floral and better used for their scent and some are better for culinary uses!
I love to use lavender for it's aromatherapy properties. It's known to help induce sleep, calm anxiety, reduce stress and soothe headaches. I keep some lavender flowers in a sachet in my pillowcase to help me fall asleep at night.
It's also included in my sleep tea recipe. Some of us are more sensitive to aromatherapy and it knocks me right out! For sleep tea make sure you're using culinary lavender or it'll taste perfume-y.
According to Time Magazine the scent of lavender can even make people trust you more.
Both the flowers and leaves have that beautiful scent, but if you plan on using them in cooking make sure your lavender has not been sprayed with pesticides. Lavender can be brewed into a tea which is great for digestive issues like nausea.
Fresh lavender leaves can be used in pork or lamb dishes instead of rosemary. Lavender can also be used for many different skin ailments.
I am a very frustrated gardener right now. Our last frost date was only last week so you know my plants aren't quite producing yet. I have nothing to harvest or even really tend to, except weeds. Why is it that a late frost can kill a vegetable plant, but not weeds? Weird, right?
Anyway, the one thing I do have a lot of is naturally growing medicinal plants like dandelions, plantain and lambs quarters.
So I'm picking and drying plantain herb today. The herb Broadleaf Plantain (Plantago major) has many amazing uses especially for cuts and bug bites. It really takes the 'owe' out of cat scratches too!In fact, it's the main ingredients in my 2 Ingredient bug bite remedy.
What is Broadleaf Plantain?
Plantain is a perennial 'weed' you probably have growing in your yard or garden. Not to be confused with the banana type fruit you see in some stores.Broadleaf plantain has a rosette of large oval shaped leaves with veins that run from bottom to top. The plant sets out several dense spikes from the center of seeds/flowers.
There are about 250 different species of plantain but we're looking at 'Plantago major'. That's it's official name although it's nickname is "Englishman's foot" by Native Americans because it seemed to appear everywhere in European settlers colonies.
As much of an annoyance as it is, it has many great uses also. It's said that plantain was once called 'snakeweed' because it
helps with snakebites, but don't go trying that just 'cause I said so!
(see a Dr of course!)It is believed to be brought to the Americas by Puritan settlers for medicinal uses.
If you're anything like me the last thing you need is 1 more gadget! Waffle irons, blenders, mixers, toasters etc all take up space in my kitchen. I just don't need 1 more gadget! That's why I end up doing things the hard way....or actually the more traditional way. Like oven drying instead of the 'easier' newer way which involves buying a dehydrator *sigh*
It's actually not all that hard to dry herbs in the oven. Depending on what type of oven you have, you might not even have to supervise the herb drying process. You could just pop it in there and forget about it till morning!
If you don't already grow your own herbs, here's a great guide on How to grow herbs for drying by Burpee that will point you in the right direction.
