How to Collect & Dry Herbs from Garden

Video Transcript

"Okay growing herbs is really a very rewarding experience in the most part because they are fairly hardy plants. They are easy to grow. They are both perennial and annual herbs. Here we are looking at a large bed of basil. Now in order to save this basil for the Winter, you have a couple of different options. You can take them, collect them green, you can freeze the leaves and just use them that way. However most traditionally have been to pick them and then to dry them. Now there are a couple of different ways to pick. If it is earlier in the season and you don't want to take the whole plant, just break off the stem and hang the stem upside down in a dark cool place and let it dry. This would be true for almost all herbs. The one thing that you want to do in order to prove the quality of your herbs is take off any flowering buds that are there because you don't want the energy of when it is dry and going into drying those buds, you want all of the flavor in those leaves. So there you are. You just take these. You hang them in a dry airy dark if you possibly can find a dark airy place but it is not something that all of us have. But it is certainly out of direct sunlight. The other possibility that it is truly the end of the season, what works really well is just to pull up the whole plant, shake the dirt off and take this entire plant an hang it. Again, the attic is a great place unless it freezes really early in your locale but any place that is going to be dry and dark and again, take off all these flower buds and you will have basil for the entire Winter. If you take two or three basil plants and hang them like this, you will have a lovely assortment of dried basil. You will be giving it away at Christmas. "