Dehydrating Herbs From The Garden - by Sunscape

It has been a busy two days this week as the first round of herbs were ready to harvest. I took advantage and decided to dry them in the #dehydrator.

The chamomile, chives, lemon balm, oregano, sage, and lemon thyme were at the perfect stage.

This is what the chamomile looks like before and after drying. I will mainly use this for steeping in tea. Once the lavender blooms I will also add that together with the chamomile. It helps my husband to have a better night's sleep.

The oregano patch is large so the leaves filled the entire dehydrator on the second day.

I cut all the garlic chives back hard and chopped them into small pieces before putting them into the machine to dry. They take the longest due to the moisture content and the thick leaves. I had enough to fill all the trays and got a nice amount to put into the container,

On the right is the lemon thyme which I did at the same time as the chamomile. They dry at about the same rate and I only had a small amount of both.

This is how I store my dried herbs. I save sterilized cat treat containers to store them in. By the end of the summer, I will have 2-3 containers of each herb.

Now that the gardens are producing I am sure the dehydrator will be running more often. I used to have the small circular types with 5 -7 trays but found that a bit tedious always rotating them through the drying stage.

I finally purchased the large one and could not be happier. It also is temperature controlled for different types of food you are preserving. I did buy the silicon sheets also for preserving any food that is liquid or has a great deal of moisture. So far I love the "Ivation" dehydrator.

Until next time, this is Sunscape
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