Preserving Herbs

[JamieCatheryn]

What have you all done to preserve food and medicinal herbs you have grown, foraged, or bought? Oils? Pesto? Drying? Freezing? Alcohol extracts? Jellies? Syrups? Those who are really stocking up on stuff, what have you compiled?

I made a glycerite of my echanacea leaves and flowers this month, using 75% food grade veg glycerin, 25% water, and the chopped plant material. I've been reading about glycerin extracts, usually they're made with alcohol then evaporated, but that destroys some of the plant's properties. Apparently if the water content is under 40% it will keep. I'll keep it in the fridge and only use it up until next spring just to be sure though. It seems echanacea is almost useless if dried or heated really, I've been taking it as tea and dried powdered capsules for years, who knew.

[Yuba_River]

Great question. All I've done so far is to make a big batch of pesto, leaving out the cheese, spoon into ice cube trays and freeze. Once it freezes, I put the cubes in a bag. Oh, and I've been drying some of the oregano.

[ursusarctos]

:
What's the best way to preserve parsley? I can get a big bunch of it for cheap at the farmer's market right now...

[birthgreeter]

when you dry stuff, you need to store it is a cool dark place-
I dry my herbs in a (closet) with no window. I pick stuff in the morning, not during the heat of the day. I have a huge shelf for storage after they are dry, that has a about 4 shelves of jars filled with dry herbs. You can make a index card to tape onto the front of the jar that lists the herb in there, what part of the plant it is from (leaves, flowers, root etc)-how to use it-topical, teas, tinctures and what it is used for. Also good to list if it is not to take internally.

For tinctures, I use alcohol, I place the herbs in the alcohol -covered, and sometimes you have to add more alcohol as the herb absorbs the moisture. Keep in a cool dark place (again the closet) for about 8 weeks. turn it every day. (I just invert or gently roll the stuff inside to mix it up a little). then strain it well, and store in jars (best to have dark jars) and a coll dark place.

I try to grow herbs inside during the winter -the ones I use a lot and want to have fresh.

I do not freeze stuff much. No reason other than if electricity would ever go out, I loose a lot of stuff. So I mostly I can and dry stuff...