Hi all! Hope you’re doing well and staying warm in the suddenly freezing weather! Unless you’re growing really cold-hardy vegetables, the coming snow and ice potentially (probably) means the end of your growing season. I’ve been growing a lot of herbs this season and am totally not ok with letting all my hard work go to waste by just having the herbs die in the snow and become unusable, and I’m guessing you’re not ok with it either! So, you could do what I did last year (spend an entire day digging up the herbs, putting them in pots for the winter, and getting a fungus gnat infestation because you brought the bugs in from the outside…), OR you could learn from my mistakes and do what I’m doing this year: drying them! It’s super easy and works on any herb. Here’s the process:

1. Start by cutting your herbs. If you’re not cutting the whole plant down for harvest, you’ll want to make the cuts just above where a leaf is so that the plant is encouraged to grow back.
2. Tie your cuttings together. You can use garden twine or something fancy, but I always just use twisty-ties.

3. Hang the bunches of herbs upside-down to dry. You’ll want to hang them in a dry place so that they dry fully. You can hang them from really anything- counter handles, a small hook, or anything else you can think of.

4. Wait until the herbs have shriveled and crumble to the touch. This could be anywhere from a couple days to a couple weeks, depending on how dry your air is and how warm the room is.

And that’s it! Now you can crumble the herbs off the stems into spice jars and use the herbs all winter. Like I said, this works well with any herb, so go nuts. You could even use this technique if you bought a packet of fresh herbs from the store that you won’t use up before it goes bad. Hope this helps you save those herbs that you’ve worked so hard to grow! Stay warm, and happy cooking!