It's time to harvest those herbs and begin to dry them for use next winter. If you grow herbs you may need step by step directions how to dry herbs.
As summer marches on, many of us find that the herbs growing in our gardens -- either the herb garden or the flower and herb garden -- are ready to harvest and dry. This can present a problem if you live in an area with hot and humid summer weather, in that herbs should ideally be dried in a relatively cool place with good air circulation.
Many years ago we lived in a house where each bathroom had its own water heater, and the heater was enclosed in its own little cabinet. It occurs to me now, in retrospect, that those little cupboards would have been the perfect place to dry herbs -- sort of like an oven with the pilot light on only you could leave them in place without worrying about toasting the herbs accidently when you preheated the oven to make supper or bake a summer berry pie.
Without a nifty spot like that, what is a gardener to do?! Trial and error is probably the best answer to that question. But, you might get some good ideas from the following article Harvesting and Preserving Herbs for the Home Gardener from University of North Carolina Extension or maybe this one on Drying Herbs from University of Illinois Extension, or this How Do I ... Dry Herbs? from the National Center for Food Preservation.
And if you are trying to juggle growing herbs and flowers in the same garden, take a look at my own Flowering Herbs for Flower Gardens.
more FLOWER GARDENS ARTICLES and FLOWER GARDENS BLOGS Copyright July 3 2007 Barbara Martin All Rights Reserved
