Drying Oregano for Long-Term Storage--Finishing the Process

Once your oregano is dry, it's time to process it!  If you didn't already do that, click here to find out how I typically dry my oregano.  Then come back to this post, which is also linked from that post at the end.  :)

If you don't want to click over, here are a few pictures of a newly picked batch of oregano.  I didn't hang these sprigs to dry, as I did with my first, smaller batch.  There was just too much.  I am letting these dry on a large, clean beach towel in my basement, and I turn bunches of sprigs over every few days or so until they're really dry and ready to process.  See here:

Harvest the sprigs of oregano.

Wash the sprigs thoroughly with cold/cool water.

I arranged all the sprigs on a large, clean beach towel to dry in the basement.

Now on to the second part of the storage process!

Here are my dry bundles of oregano that I hung in the basement:

I untied all the bundles and brought them up to my kitchen.  Then I removed the dried leaves from the stems--I hold the base of the stem with one hand, pulling the stem through two fingers and a thumb of my other hand.  The leaves go into a bowl; the stems get discarded.

Time for my awesome Braun stick blender!  It has a blender cup for blending, among other things, herbs, of course!

I fill the cup pretty full, as you can see, and blend that quantity with several pulses, until it's the consistency I want.  You can get it blended pretty finely, or more coarse--it's up to you!

I use a canning funnel with a quart-sized canning jar.  I just pour the chopped leaves into the jar.

Doesn't look like a lot, huh?  That's why recipes always call for less dried herbs than they do fresh.  However, this is a great way to save freezer space!  This jar is in my "bomb shelter" space in our basement.  I'm hoping to get enough oregano for the entire year, and with that second batch of oregano you saw above in this post, maybe I'll just do that!


Back to life,
Christine

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Flowers and Herbs

May 19-20.

Time for a visit to one of my front yard flower gardens!  Oh--but not just flowers!  I've got some herbs growing in here, stuff the critters don't eat, and so far it's all doing fantastic!  Here's a picture of the whole garden:

See that light green bush?  That's oregano.  I'm going to have to harvest it really soon!

Here are three new plants for this garden:  next to my cheap $2 garden gloves (lost one of my awesome pair from last year, grr), you'll see English thyme, pincushion flower, and French sorrel, an edible leaf-herb (more on that below!).

I started with the flower portion of my purchase:  pincushion flower.  It has these bright, deep pink blooms that look like pincushions.  But I bet you figured that out.  They're supposed to bloom all summer with new blossoms popping up continually, so that sounded pretty good to me.  We'll see how it does this year.  I tend to love those flowers that require little maintenance, and which are hardy enough to keep coming back year after year, even with my neglect.  I'm much better with vegetables than with flowers!

There was an open spot by that rock, so that's where this flower would be planted.  Just to the right of that area, there is/was a purple coneflower.  Even now (July), it remains dead; it never came back from last year.  This makes me sad, as it was so very pretty.

On to the herbs!  You can see in the picture below that I've already planted the English thyme and French sorrel (extreme front right, and behind that), but I wanted to show you what I had done in order to do that.  I had to move all those other flowers in the picture.  Those are variegated beard tongue, and bloom the prettiest pinks and purples.  They also proliferate in this garden, which I love.  And not so love, since I have to move them to keep them contained.  But I have also given some to neighbors so they can enjoy them as well.  I really do love their color!

Below you can see the English thyme and French sorrel together.  Two European herbs!  I've snipped a few sprigs of the thyme already, and they've dried, hanging in my basement (you'll see that in an upcoming post, too!).  The French sorrel can be eaten like a leaf lettuce or spinach, chopped up in a salad or eaten with fish.  I thought it had a more bitter taste like arugula does, but when I tried it, it was positively lemony!

French sorrel, there in the bright green.

English thyme, with purple and pink beard tongue beyond.

I thought I'd throw one more picture in, of my sage plant.  This has come back faithfully year after year, but sadly, shortly after I took this picture, it mysteriously died.  I'm still upset about it, as I don't know why it happened.  I was really looking forward to fried sage leaves, which I had done once before the plant died.

Anyway, there's my front yard herb garden, with some flowers thrown in!


Back to life,
Christine

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