I love my herb bed. Of all the parts of my gardens, I admit to being very partial to my humble herbs. The flowerbeds give me such beauty. But the herbs are both beautiful and practical; I use them all the time.

Herbs are easy to grow because most don’t like really fertile soil. That means you don’t need to have good-quality dirt to plant them in, and you never need to fertilize. Even better, they don’t need much water at all. In fact, lots of them hate what gardeners call “wet feet” and will actually get diseases or die with too much watering. I suspect most people that have trouble with herbs are simply being too nice to them—try neglecting them a bit!

I suspect most people that have trouble with herbs are simply being too nice to them—try neglecting them a bit! Click To Tweet

At the end of summer, the plants in my herb garden have multiplied rank, sprawling lazily on neighbors, putting on tatty heads of flowers, overwhelming the space with sheer herb-ness. This is when I harvest, carting whole armfuls of stems and leaves inside and preserving them for the months without green growing things. Winter is the perfect time to toss handfuls of herbs into slow-cooking pots of hearty cold-weather foods.

I have always dried herbs, or made them into pesto or broth cubes. It was my dear Moma who introduced me to freezing them. I have a fantastic recipe for Basil-Infused Parmesan Mashed Potatoes that takes an enormous head of basil. In the winter months, when taters go well with so many things, fresh basil is like green gold. When I lamented this to my Moma, she offered me some of hers, straight from the freezer sack. It cooked up just like fresh and still had all the wonderful potency in the oil. I was sold!

Sage is one of my favorite herbs. It is a sturdy bush, easily overwintering the nasty winters here (in zone 6) and even staying a bit green in milder ones. I love sage both frozen and dried. To freeze it, you need only cut long stems full of leaves. Get a good bunch together, tuck into a freezer bag, press out the air, and chuck into the arctic shelves of your freezer. To use the frozen herb, simply open the bag and yank off however many leaves you want. I will put whole bushy stems covered with leaves in a pot of beans; sage and beans are a match made in heaven.

If you prefer dried sage, simply gather the stems, wrap with a wire twist tie from a bread sack or a piece of twine, and hang upside down in a place where the air will circulate and it will not be in direct sunlight. Let hang until it is so dry that when you rub a leaf between your fingertips, it disintegrates into a little furry pile with no hint of moisture in it. This is the “rubbed sage” that sells so expensively at the grocery store, especially at the holidays when it is tucked into all kinds of stuffings. Rub your own and put into a glass jar with a tight lid. If you prefer dry, chopped sage leaves, chop it fine and place it straight into a jar. Easy-peasy!

To quickly preserve basil, oregano, rosemary, chives, mint, etc., just put handfuls into bags and freeze, marking with the name and date. You don’t want to use some basil that has been hanging around since the 80’s just because you can’t remember when you stuck it in there. (I might be speaking from experience about the vast freezer wastelands where a food can go missing for a decade and then resurface. Dr. Livingston, I presume?)

I love to freeze basil and chives so much that I haven’t even attempted drying them. However, you can dry oregano and thyme the same way as sage. I DO NOT like dried rosemary!! Whether it’s store-bought or homegrown, dried rosemary always seems like little tough sticks in my food—yuck. However, rosemary frozen on the stem can be used the same as fresh. I throw whole stems in with lamb, roasts, broths, and so on. Before serving, I fish out the big stem; all the little leaves will have dropped off, gone all soft and supple, and flavored the food with their gorgeous evergreen woody taste.

If you primarily use chopped herbs in soups or sauces, freeze it in cubes using broth (which doesn’t dilute a recipe like water). I learned this lesson the hard way: herbs float up and stick out of liquid as it freezes, so any of the bits sticking out can get freezer burned. Solve this problem by adding the amount of chopped herb you might want in a recipe (example: 1 tsp. oregano) to each compartment of an ice cube tray, then filling half way with broth and freezing overnight. The following day, add more broth to the top of each cube—the herbs were frozen at the halfway mark, so the additional broth covers and protects them—and again freeze the cubes overnight. Pop out the frozen cubes, store them in a bag marked with the date and the name of the herb, and stash in the freezer.

Lavender dries wonderfully simply hung up in bundles.

I mention some tips for storage as well as how to make Lavender Sugar on my personal blog, Ms. Sam Wears Dresses.

If you love to cook with herbs, or you are just starting to try it, growing your own is a wonderful idea. When you are able to use as much of a fresh herb as you like (without cringing at much it costs to buy them in the little plastic clamshells at the store), you will be delighted! Start with some mint for your sweet tea and see what a joy it is to walk outside to pick your own bit of green goodness, then preserve it to enjoy all winter long.

 

For some great ideas on using your dried herbs, see Beth’s post on making your own spice blends!