IN THE GARDEN: Saving herbs for later

Did you know thyme gets its name from Greek word for bravery: thymus? Are your herbs, including thyme, in full swing? Now is the time to harvest them. 

Cut your herbs at mid-morning, the best flavor time. Remove any that aren’t just right (dead, black spotted, wilted, etc.). 

Now you have several options of what to do with them once they are harvested. If you choose to dry your herbs, you can either air dry or oven dry them. 

To air dry, tie the ends of the branches together, depending on the size about 4-5 branches. You can use twine or a rubber band to hold the branches together. Slide a paper bag over the herbs. Poke a few holes in the bag for ventilation. The paper bag helps keep as much of the flavor in the leaves as possible during the drying process. Hang them in a warm (not hard to find in August), ventilated room (not the toolshed). Your herbs will be ready in 1-2 weeks. 

To oven dry, place the leaves of your herbs on a cookie sheet. No need to grease and flour the pan. Place the pan in the oven at 170 degrees or the lowest temperature your oven has for warm. Leave the door open. Two to four hours later, your herbs will be dried. 

Whether you oven dry or air dry, you will know your herbs are ready when they crumble easily. Store whole dried leaves in an airtight container, label, and date them.

If you have a dehydrator, go for it.

Another option, and one of our favorites, is an ice cube tray. 

For herbs like basil and rosemary, aromatic herbs we use when we sauté, chop them up like you were about to cook with them. Place the chopped herbs into ice cube trays. You can either put them in separate cubes or combine them. Fill the tray halfway with olive oil and freeze. Then, when it’s fall or winter, you can pop out a cube and sauté away with your home-grown fresh herbs. Make sure to label and date them. One night I (daughter Martelle) accidentally put mint in my spaghetti sauce rather than basil and oregano. It was an interesting flavor.

P.S.: If you like to make fresh pesto, you can put your basil and olive oil in the food processor. Combine and then scrape into the ice cubes. Don’t add your lemon juice though. Lemon juice counteracts the olive oil in the freezing process and the ice cubes are sloshy. Little ones could knock it over in the freezer and make a mess.

The second ice cube tray option: Gather your mints, chop them up, place in an ice cube tray, and cover with water. Then, place the trays in the freezer with labels and dates. When you are serving iced tea, pop out a mint cube for each glass. Yummy flavor of fresh mint. You can also use the mint cube to cool down a cup of hot tea. If you are growing chocolate mint, save it for hot cocoa days.

NATIVE GRASSES

When you are walking out the door to go for a morning walk or an evening jog, swing by your kitchen and grab a paper lunch bag or two. Along county/country roads, you will see many native grasses such as little bluestem, Indiangrass, sideoats grama (the State Grass of Texas), switchgrass, Canadian rye, and others that are ripe for seed gathering. If possible, carry a marker with you to label the bags. It’s easier to know what plant the seed came from when you are looking at the plant. 

Also, if you carry a smartphone, take a picture of the grass you are collecting from for future reference or to double check your identification. 

Come January through April, you can plant your native grass seeds.

Till next time. Keep your souls and soles in your garden! Remember the True Master Gardener: Jesus said, “I am the vine; my Father is the Gardener.” John 15:1    

“In the Garden” is written by father-daughter gardening duo Bill and Martelle Luedecke. Questions or comments? Contact Martelle at 512-769-3179 or luedeckephotography@gmail.com. Contact Bill at 512-577-1463 or bill@texasland.net.