How to Harvest & Store Thyme

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Yolanda Vanveen and in this segment we're going to talk about how to harvest and store thyme. Now thyme is a wonderful herb, and it's so easy to grow. And it tastes really good with chicken dishes and pork dishes, and just with tomatoes and cheese. It's this ultimate flavor; I love it. So when do you know when it's time to harvest it, and how do you harvest thyme? Well, it's one of those plants that has greenery on it and you can harvest it almost any time that it's growing. So this is a smaller thyme plant; it doesn't have a lot of growth to it, but you can just cut out of it as needed as long as it's got leaves. You want the leaves, not too much stem. And then you can just add a little bit of that to your cooking dishes, to some chicken or whatever you want to, fresh. But, you can also dry it really easily too. Especially if you've got some plants outside, and you want to harvest them to keep them over the winter. So, thyme is one of those plants that can be hung upside down. So you can just cut a bunch of it, and either tie it up or you can just put it right into paper bags and store it that way, and let it dry. And a lot of times you can just put some string around it, and just hang it. And then that way you can use it as a dried herb all winter long until you have fresh thyme the next year. Or, you can even keep the plant in the house as a houseplant, and use it all winter long too. Thyme is a wonderful plant because as long as it's got some greenery on it, it's ready to harvest year round. And it doesn't matter how far back you trim it. It will always grow back unless it's outside in the middle of winter, and then it'll just wait for the spring to grow. And you can dry it by hanging it, or you can actually even put it in the microwave for just a few seconds and dry it that way. Any way that you store it, you can use it all winter long."