How To Dry Fresh Herbs

Series Summary

Herb gardening is a very popular form of gardening throughout the world. Whether growing herbs for use in cooking, or growing them for medicinal purposes, growing herbs is a great way to get into the rewarding hobby of gardening. In these videos, our expert will teach you a variety of tips and tricks for growing herbs, as well as some of the medicinal and culinary uses for the different herbs you can cultivate.

In these videos you will learn about the medicinal uses for herbs such as cardamom, oregano, tarragon, juniper, and peppermint. Our expert will teach you about what is required in order to grow herbs. You will learn all of the necessary steps, from designing your herb garden to planting your herbs, to finally harvesting them once they have grown. In addition you will also see a demonstration on how to transplant herbs from one bed to another, and learn how to dry your herbs once they have been harvested.

Video Transcript

"After you have grown an abundance of herbs, you’ll want to put it up for the season, and give to your friends and family, and might even want to sell some. But these are the ways that I harvest and dry herbs. Basically, twice a year, I trim the herb plants. And I have a real nice pair of kitchen scissors, or I can use garden snips. And I trim the herbs, and I either- depending on the quantity- I either lay it out on a big piece of fabric to dry, or I put it in a bowl like this and turn it periodically. You can see this side is dry and now this is green. And so, I just keep turning it so that it keeps drying on all sides. Some of the herbs that I’ve already dried are- these are actually seeds- these are dill seeds, about two quarts of dill seeds that I’ve just harvested. And the only thing that I have left to do now is to take these stems out and then put them in some mason jars. And, last year when we made pickles, we could not find dill seeds anywhere in our town, and so we decided to grow some, and this is the result- two quarts, first season. Ok, and other herbs are- this is from my sister-in-law’s bay laurel tree. And I have some of the seeds in here that I intend to plant- it is a beautiful tree. And of course, bay laurel is great for soups and different things- spaghetti. Then we have marjoram. I harvested this- when I harvest the herbs, I dry them and I put them in a container, and I mark on them when they were harvested and dried and that way I know the age of them. And this came from our land in Mexico, and it’s marjoram. And here’s some parsley that I just harvested from a friend’s garden. Parsley harvested five-oh-five. And this is oregano- organic oregano, harvested. This is an oil that is made out of comfrey and olive oil. So I took the fresh comfrey leaves and put them in a pan with olive oil and cooked them in a double boiler and then poured the liquid off for this comfrey olive oil. "