Drying Herbs.....

This Weeks Bible Verse:

Genesis 1:11 - And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass,

 the herb yielding seed,

 [and] the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, 

whose seed [is] in itself, 

upon the earth: and it was so. 

Let's look at different drying methods and styles:

• Drying Techniques:
• There are several ways that herbs and cut flowers can be dried. Below is a brief look at how these plants can be dried.
• Upside down drying: this is the longest method of drying. It can take several months for some plants to dry, but the flavor of herbs and spices is more potent because the oils are held in to the plant better.
• Dehydrator method: is the quickest way to dry herbs, instead of months it take hours to dry the plants. Also, with the dehydrator you can dry fruits and vegetables. On the down side some of the nutrition value is lost.
• Silica Sand: is a pretty quick method of drying. The plants are dried in about a week. The down side is that flowers and plants that are dried CANNOT be consumed. This is for flower arranging and other floral options only. I for one grow a dried flower section in my garden so this method is great for me to use, because the flowers hold their color and shape better.

This is an option for drying herbs and flowers.
I dry them on hangers in an unused closet space.

• Upside down drying:
• Gathering- when cutting your herbs or flowers for drying make sure that they have a long enough stem to tie and dry.
• Washing- Make sure that all herbs you use are washed before hanging. The herbs do need time to dry because they will turn black if left wet.
• Bundling- Make sure that when you bundle your herbs to dry that the bundle is not too huge. The herbs will slowly fall out of the bundle sometimes. Make sure that you use cotton twine or jute to tie them into bundles. Hang them upside down and check them regularly for their dryness. Hang them in a cool dark place for the best results.

This option shows how they can be dried on the way. Be creative too.

• Dehydrator:
• Gathering- the stems for this process can be rather short. Most of the time only the leaves are dried and not the stems anyway.
• Washing- Make sure that the plants are completely dry before you place them in the dehydrator because they will turn black.
• Process- this takes a little more time to get ready to dry than the upside down drying system, because you need to remove each leaf from the stem and lay them flat on each tray of the dehydrator.
• Drying time- Make sure to check your plants and flowers every hour to make sure they are drying evenly. It normally takes about 3 to 4 hours to dry one batch of herb leaves.

•  Silica Sand:
• Gathering: this is really used for drying flowers. Make sure that you gather just the head of the flowers.
• Washing: no washing is necessary because they are not for edible uses only crafting use.
• Process: Place the flower in a container and cover with craft silica sand until you can no longer see the flowers.
• Drying time: This process takes about a week to complete. What the silica sand does is it takes the water out of the plants. The flowers will have more color and vibrancy when dried this way. Use in dried flower craft projects.

Well if anyone can think of other ways to dry plants and flowers add them to the comments.