by Texas Homesteader ~
I’ve discovered my favorite herb to cook with is Thyme. It’s so versatile and it adds a delicious flavor to so many different dishes. I planted Thyme in my edible landscape several years ago.
They grew into tiny bushes and I cooked with fresh thyme often. But the drought took my plants so reluctantly I decided to buy jars of thyme for awhile instead of replacing those plants.
I was absolutely shocked when I saw the price of thyme in the stores. Although you can buy a large container of cinnamon for .99 or less, thyme was closer to $4 if it could even be found in our smaller rural stores!
Buying A Thyme Plant Instead
Then I came across a small thyme plant they were trying to get rid of at the end of the season. I grabbed it thinking maybe I could grow it in a kitchen windowsill. The Thyme grew scraggly in no time and I knew I was going to lose it.
In desperation I pulled a single rooted stem and stuck it in an outside cement planter on our south-facing porch and it thrived there all winter! Now finally it’s time to harvest and preserve some of it.
I took out the kitchen shears and lopped off the stems leaving about 1/2 the height of the plant. I brought the stems in and after a quick rinse I started pulling off the leaves.
I’ll keep the leaves in a wide bowl that I will leave on my kitchen counter. Each day I’ll fluff them to ensure even drying and they’ll be ready to store in about one to two weeks.
After about thirty minutes of pulling leaves I decided that was too much of a labor-intense way to harvest them so I decided to dry the rest of the stems first then crush the leaves from the stems after all is dried.
Hopefully I’ll also be able to harvest and preserve more throughout the year as well as using it fresh. I want to make sure I keep this thyme container FULL!
Even Easier Herb Drying
Oftentimes I’ll use the even LAZIER cook’s Herb-Drying Option. I’ll harvest bundles of my favorite herbs toward the end of the season. I always have thyme of course, but also oregano, sage and basil. They’re the herbs I use most often in my cooking.
I’ll give them a quick rinse and shake most of the water off of them. Then I’ll spread the bundles lightly and allow them to air dry a bit.
Finally I’ll bundle them up again and with cotton string (ie: the string leftover from our bags of feed) I’ll tie them up on the hooks RancherMan’s installed for me in my kitchen.
There they’ll stay for the rest of the season. I could strip the dry leaves and put them into small jars for use. But I really like the way they look hanging here. And I’m using them pretty much every day.
So most times I just leave them here until it’s time to harvest another bundle. Decorative functionality, y’all!
With my shock over the price of dried herbs purchased in the stores, the lesson has been learned! I’ll grow & dry my own home-grown Thyme as well as other herbs.
~TxH~
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Wait, did I miss something? All you have to do to dry it is leave it out at room temp? That’s awesome! I had imagined it would have been way more complicated than that! I’m excited to try it out. Thanks for sharing this with us on Simply Natural Saturdays!
I love my herb garden and I routinely use sage, chives, and basil. I grow thyme but have never found an easy way to harvest or really many ways to cook with it. I am excited to follow your progress with harvesting your own.
🙂 gwingal
I like to include thyme in my meat seasoning, and I always love sprinkling it on my garden veggies as I’m steaming them for a side dish. A eensy scraping of butter and fresh herbs really packs a punch. ~TxH~
I cut the stems and let the leaves air dry that way. When they are completely dry they are easy to strip off the stems and store for use. Thyme is my favourite herb. – Margy
What a great post about Thyme! Your plant looks great, and that is a huge money saver!
Thanks for sharing your post with Green Thumb Thursday. I hope you’ll join us again this week!
~Lisa
I want to start an herb garden – I did not even know there were different types of thyme.
Herb gardens are typically very easy to grow Joann and it’s very fulfilling to stroll out & snip off a few leaves to incorporate into your dinner right then, right there. ~TxH~
Wow, your little end-of-the-season plant sure thrived in its new home!! Nice…. also, thyme has some great medicinal uses, making it a WONDERFUL plant for the herb garden… I harvested and used it last year to help one of my kids who was having nightmares… it stopped them the first night and they never came back… I love using the herbs. 🙂 I also learned to strip the leaves off when dried… it is so much easier. 🙂
Thank you for this! I have been going through a lot of thyme. I bought a jar last week and my son dropped the grocery bag on the sidewalk on the way into the house. 🙁 I told him it was wasted thyme. Ha ha ha. Once I clear out my herb garden a little more I am going to plant some.
Thyme is one of my favorite herbs to use in cooking but I’ve never grown my own. I may have to rethink that! Thanks so much for sharing this at the party this week. I am featuring it on my Facebook page and pinning it to the You’re Gonna Love It Tuesday board on Pinterest 😉
Thanks for sharing at the Friday Follow Along. I never thought to wait until it was dry to get those tiny leaves off!
That’s great that you managed to save it! I took pictures of the potted plants I planted on the weekend…. so I can remember what they look like while alive!
Anne – “so I can remember what they look like while alive” LOL!! ~TxH~
I love cooking with Thyme and have started to grow my own. I’m going to try your technique for drying it! Thanks for sharing!!
I have difficulty maintaining a thyme plant indoors or out. They seem to dwindle away. Do you know which variety of thyme you have?
Yes ma’am Carol, it’s lemon thyme, my favorite. Previously I planted lemon thyme and they grew into little bushes. Love it! ~TxH~
Thyme is a pain to pull off and crush but great to have and save money! I have regular cooking thyme and lemon thyme now. Behind on cutting back both this spring but did manage to harvest some lemon thyme yesterday to dry. Hope yours continues to produce lots for you. Nancy
Nancy, So far the thyme is still growing great and I plan to harvest off of it every couple of weeks! I also have some oregano that’s ready to harvest, as well as sage. Love it! ~TxH~