You’ve gone to the trouble of growing organic herbs, and now you have a bumper crop.

So what are you going to do with the extra herbs left? For sure you don’t want them to go to waste, so here are the five wonderful suggestions you can do with them.

Dry

Drying organic herbs is easy even in a relatively humid environment. Harvest the herbs on cool hours, usually early in the day and use scissors or a sharp knife to cut long stems. Carefully wash the herbs and place it on a clean towel to absorb excess moisture. Then bundle them together with pretty ribbon, and hang them in a place that is relatively dry and not along the way. If you hang them in direct sun, they will lose some of their color. Put your organic herbs in jars when they become completely dry – crinkly dry – and surely they will last for about a year.

Freeze

Herbs will somehow be just like the fresh herbs when you use them if it is frozen. Harvest the herbs at early morning and lay them on towels to dry. Make sure that there is no excess water on the herbs. Herbs are best frozen on the stem so better no to remove the leaves or flowers from the stem. Put them in freezer bags and label. They can be used for six months or so. If you want to use your frozen herbs, just remove the package and crumble off leaves, then return the package back in the freezer

Make Herb Vinegar

Organic herb vinegars are beautiful and amazing. They add a wonderful taste on salads and cooked vegetables. They can be pretty amazing as gifts too. You could make experiments with different organic herbs to find out more of flavor combinations.

Things needed:

Clean glass jar with lid. 

Vinegar – Use organic white vinegar for better results, though wine vinegars are good too. Cider vinegar can be used also but it has a strong flavor of its own. Fresh organic herbs are best for herb vinegars. 

Harvest and wash as above and place them in a jar.  Add vinegar and cover it; then set aside for several weeks and finally strain the herbs out. 

Make Organic Herb Oils

Herbal oils are wonderful on salads too. They are great for dipping bread into and cooking with. Organic herbal oils can also be used as bath oils and skin moisturizers.

CAUTION:  Herb oils MUST be refrigerated. Storage time is less for fresh herbs compared to the dried ones. Flavored oils are susceptible for the growth of bacteria, thus bear in mind the importance of following the storage directions carefully.   Oils made with fresh organic herbs lasts for a maximum of two weeks while oils made with fully dried organic herbs lasts up to one month in your refrigerator.

Things needed:

A glass jar with lid

Organic herbs - either dried or fresh

Oil - Extra virgin olive oil is good for cooking, but you can use almost any oil. 

Fill a glass of bottle with about half full of oil then add the herbs in it. After that fill up the bottle with oil and return its cap. There you have it, your new organic herb oils.

These wonderful ideas of preserving organic herbs make good gifts. You can tie a ribbon around a bottle of bay oil or chive vinegar, package it with a loaf of bread or a salad set and have a unique gift that anybody will appreciate.