Drying Herbs

As we get to the end of the growing season, I'm inundated with herbs from across the yard.  In our front yard, we often plant annual herbs like sage, basil, and rosemary. For the past several years, we've grown perennial chives, oregano, thyme, and mint.  We're in USDA agricultural zone 4b, which really helps us know what will grow well here and how to plant and care for each plant, though we've been in a drought this year that has been really hard on a lot of our plants.  

My biggest failings this year were my annual herbs.  Although I plant them each spring, the drought this year and extreme heat - along with the increasing shade from my growing crabapple tree - made it too difficult for the annuals.  I still wound up with a small crop of mint and a large crop of thyme and oregano.  

In our back yard, we have native stinging nettle that continually pops up near our deck.  Instead of fighting it, I decided to embrace that this year, and have added it to our harvesting rotation.  In our first cut-back this season, I filled two 1 quart jars!  So, we're already doing pretty well with this one, and have been using it for herbal tea and teaching the kids about the importance of all living things in our environment.

In order to preserve our herbs, I prefer to dry them!  We have a small convection oven/microwave that works very well for this since it has a low minimum temperature and uses much less energy than the range oven.  The process is the same for every herb, although the volume to time ratio is not determined by the amount we harvest as much as the size -and sting- of the leaf.  While I only get a single jar of thyme each year, it takes a long time to strip from the stalk.  

I use the same process for drying no matter what herb I'm processing: 
1) Strip leaves from the plant stalk.
2) Spread in a single layer on a cookie sheet. 
3) Bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 250° F (120° C). 
4) Remove from the oven, let cool.
5) Grind into jars (I usually just roll it in my fingers), and enjoy!