4 Easy Ways to Preserve Fresh Herbs from the Garden Learn how to harvest and preserve your fresh garden herbs to enjoy them all year! Enjoy fresh herbs from the garden longer by preserving them!
Instead of letting fresh herbs go to waste, preserve them. It’s a great way to enjoy your favorite herbs all year, and the process is a lot easier than you might think. In this article we'll share four simple preservation methods you can use from spring until the first frost hits, and I’ll show you which herbs work best for each approach.
How to harvest fresh herbsThe best time of day to harvest herbs, if you can, is in the morning after the dew has evaporated but before the heat has started to strip away plants’ natural essential oils. Plants with woodier stems will require a pair of pruners or scissors. Herbs with more tender stems can just be snapped off, no tool required.
Early harvestsDuring the growing season, harvest branching herbs like basil (Ocimum basilicum), oregano (Origanum vulgare) or mint (Mentha spp.) by cutting up to a third of a stem back to just above a leaf node. This encourages the plant to form new side shoots and continue to grow.
You can harvest nonbranching herbs, such as cilantro (Coriandrum sativum), parsley (Petroselinum crispum) or chives (Allium schoenoprasum), by cutting individual stems at the base. But don’t harvest all of them or they may not grow back. In general, try not to harvest more than a third of a plant at one time so plenty of leaves are left to photosynthesize.
Harvesting herbs in fallFor the last harvest of annual herbs in fall, go ahead and cut the entire plant to the ground, no matter which herb it is, as they won’t return the next year. It doesn’t hurt to harvest perennial
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