How To Dry Herbs

[Music Playing] Part of the Green House Network Gardenfork How to dry Herbs Eric Rochow: Hey everyone. People have been emailing us asking about how to preserve herbs and spices and things like this. And we were just over at friend Wally’s house. She was showing us to be our friend from little Be Tour. But Wally shows us how you can use the microwave to store, preserve, dry mint. And mint around here grows like a weed so we just kind of let it go through the yard. [Demo] Anyway, we let mint grow just about anywhere so we are going to pick a bunch of it and we are going to microwave it and dry and we will show you how to do it, all right. So, you want to cut off the seed heads. There, like that. [Demo] But the stems were just, there is ton a bit here. Wally: I think their different thymes, I think the kind over here is different from the kind over there. Eric Rochow: Yes, there is spearmint, there is peppermint, and there is the yellow. Wally: They do not smell so mint fresh. Are the smaller leaves better than the larger leaves or does not matter? Eric Rochow: I do not know. Wally: You are suppose to know. Eric Rochow: I do not know everything that is really garden prop. Okay, everyone we just came back from the country and we were harvesting the bunch of different herbs and stuff and I thought let us try and dry herbs. We have got a lot of email from people going, “Hey, how do you dry herbs?’ One fellow on the Green House has emailed me a couple of times and he puts herbs on the dashboard of his car when he parks it in the parking lot at work. What kind of a cool idea. Puts up paper towels and then put the herbs on their, and it gets quite warm in the car and they dry. I have this idea of trying to dry herbs in the microwave and so my buddy Tony here one of my best friends who run the camera. Tony: Hello. Eric Rochow: Hello, it is really, actually he is given me a lot of cool ideas for the show and so we have some mint which grows like a weed. And we have some chives and I thought let us try and dry this. Let see what happens. So I got these chives here and I really like to use scissors because it is a lot to use of them try to mince this stuff but we are going to cut this into small pieces or relatively small pieces. Like they are doing in the restaurant but I like scissors because that way I do not cut my self. So I cut a bunch of this. [Demo] That is a good idea. Don’t you think? Tony: Yes, it is very neat. Eric Rochow: And then, we have some mint here. Now, I am wondering can you do the mint. Can we do it right on the leave it on the stem? Tony: Through it water and the stem let see if you could try to split down under the leaves. Eric Rochow: Okay. Tony: Do this drying time. Eric Rochow: So, this is to get the leaves off we basically, you hold it up of the tip here and then just kind of hold your fingers around the stem and pull it down like that and they come off. It is not going to be perfect but what is in garden for. You can also do this with rosemary, oregano things like that. That smells great, that really smells great. I am going to try this with wax paper. I think you could use parchment paper with this or even paper towels. But parchment papers kind of like expensive and we always have wax paper lying around. Let us just try this. Now, should this be kind of ideally in one layer I think. Tony: Breaking up, they guess. Eric Rochow: Microwaves are all different and they all have different power ranges or whatever. So I think we should have this pulse on and off not at the super high setting. What do you thing Tony? Tony: Yes. Eric Rochow: I am going to try this at – what do we say half power for three minutes and see what happens, okay. Go. [Demo] All right, now, we wait, let see what happens. Is that going to work? Tony: I do not know I got to try. [Demo] Eric Rochow: This is like kind of like watching paint dry so I have been very exciting. Tony and I have been watching chives spin so. Tony: I got my PHD walls within. Eric Rochow: Yes. That is hot. Okay, let us get another mi