What home herbalism involves

Most of the work is small and regular. You water a few pots, pinch the growing tips so the plants bush out, and cut stems on a dry morning before the flowers open, when the leaves hold the most scent. Cut herbs hang or lie on a rack for a week or two, then go into jars. The making happens at the kitchen counter in sessions of an hour or so: weighing a tea blend, warming dried rosemary in oil, melting beeswax for a salve. Everything on this page uses herbs sold in the produce aisle or grown from an ordinary seed packet.

Basil, oregano and rosemary growing in three small pots on a bright windowsill — Three herbs on a sunny sill

Read this before you make anything

Not medicine

This guide treats herbs as food, flavor and craft. Nothing here is meant to treat, cure or prevent any condition, and a tea or salve is not a substitute for seeing a doctor.

Medicines

Herbs can interact with prescription and over-the-counter medicines. If you take any medication, ask your doctor or pharmacist before you start drinking a new herb regularly.

Not safe for everyone

Pregnancy, breastfeeding, childhood and existing health conditions all change what is safe. Check with a doctor or pharmacist first, and do not give homemade herbal preparations to babies or young children.

Allergies

Chamomile belongs to the daisy family and can set off a reaction in people allergic to ragweed. Try any new herb in a small amount, and test a dab of salve on your inner arm for a day before using more.

Oil and botulism

Fresh herbs and fresh garlic hold water and can carry Clostridium botulinum spores, which grow in the airless, low-acid conditions under oil without changing its look, smell or taste. Infuse only fully dried herbs, keep the oil in the refrigerator and use it within three months. An oil made with fresh herbs or fresh garlic has to stay refrigerated and be used within 2 to 4 days.

Know the plant

Use only herbs you can name with certainty and that were grown for eating. Ornamental nursery plants may carry pesticides not labeled for food, and some wild look-alikes are poisonous.

Hot wax and oil

Melt beeswax in a water bath, never straight on a burner. Overheated wax or oil can catch fire, and water spreads that fire. Smother it with a pan lid.

Selling

Giving a friend a jar of tea is fine. Selling teas or salves brings in state cottage food laws and federal labeling rules, and a label may not claim a health benefit.

Check an herb, an oil or an emergency

Herb bundles and garlic braids hanging to dry from a rail on a white board wall

Your first month, step by step

From a supermarket bunch to a tin of salve

Brewing dried herbs, from a university extension

UVM Extension: Using Summer Dried Herbs and Flowers Tea from dried herbs: a teaspoon per mug, steeped 3 to 5 minutes. Needs only dried herbs and hot water

What you can make in your first month

A jar of dried mint

One supermarket bunch dries down to enough leaf for about a dozen mugs of tea.

A house tea blend

Dried mint mixed by parts with a second herb, written down so you can repeat it.

Rosemary cooking oil

Dried rosemary warmed in olive oil, strained and kept in the refrigerator.

A beeswax hand salve

Infused oil and beeswax melted together and poured into tins.

A windowsill herb pot

Basil and chamomile seedlings up and growing, ready for a first pinch in week five or six.

Eight herbs worth starting with

Mint

The easiest tea herb. It spreads by runners, so give it a pot of its own. Buy a plant, because seed-grown mint varies in flavor.

Lemon balm

Quick from seed and tolerant of part shade. The lemon scent fades in drying, so dry it fast and use it within a few months.

German chamomile

An annual that flowers about 8 to 10 weeks after sowing. You pick the open flower heads, not the leaves.

Basil

Fast from seed and hungry for heat and sun. It turns black if dried slowly, so freeze it or use a dehydrator.

Thyme

Tiny leaves that dry in days and keep their flavor better than most. Let the soil dry out between waterings.

Rosemary

Woody, slow from seed and long-lived once it settles in. Start with a plant, and bring it indoors where winters drop below about 20°F.

Sage

Thick leaves that take two weeks or more to dry. One plant gives a household all the sage it will use.

Lavender

Choose an English type for a sweeter scent. Cut the stems when the first buds open, and use it sparingly in blends because it turns soapy fast.

Hands cutting a sprig from a rosemary bush with a pair of scissors — Cutting rosemary just above a leaf pair

Dried chamomile flower heads heaped in front of dried green leaves

Drying and storing so the flavor lasts

Dry in the dark, store whole

Harvest time

Cut in the morning after the dew has dried and before the day heats up. Take no more than a third of a plant at once so it grows back.

Air drying

Sturdy herbs (rosemary, thyme, sage) hang well in small bundles. Tender, wet-leaved herbs (mint, basil, lemon balm) do better in a single layer on mesh, where air reaches both sides.

Dehydrator settings

95 to 115°F is the tested range, and most herbs finish in 1 to 4 hours. Higher heat drives off the scented oils you are trying to keep.

Skip the sun

Direct sun bleaches color and flavor. A dark closet with the door ajar or a spare room with a fan works better than a bright porch.

Storage

Use airtight jars and keep them away from light and the stove. Home-dried herbs taste best within a year.

Strength

Dried herbs are three to four times stronger than fresh, so a recipe that calls for a tablespoon of fresh leaves takes about a teaspoon of dried.

How to build a tea blend

Work in parts

A part is any measure you like, from a teaspoon to a cup. Recipes written in parts scale from a single mug to a full jar without any math.

Base

Start with about 3 parts of a mild, pleasant leaf such as mint or lemon balm. It sets the main flavor.

Support

Add 1 part of something that rounds it out, such as chamomile flowers or lemon thyme.

Accent

Finish with a pinch to a quarter part of a strong herb. Lavender, rosemary and sage take over a cup quickly.

Test small

Mix one mug's worth, taste it, change one thing and write the recipe on the label. Blend a whole jar only after the third or fourth version.

A loose chamomile tea blend spilling from a white mortar beside a wooden spoon — A chamomile blend, mixed by hand

What trips beginners up

Jarring too early

Herbs that feel dry but still bend will mold inside a week. Wait for the snap.

Crushing before storing

Powdered leaves lose their scent in weeks. Whole leaves hold it for months.

Oven drying

Most ovens bottom out near 170°F, hot enough to cook the scent out of the leaves. Use the oven light alone, or stay with air drying.

Too much water, too little light

Most kitchen herbs come from dry, sunny hillsides. Water when the top inch of soil is dry, and expect leggy, pale plants in a north window.

Expecting fresh flavor

Dried basil and lemon balm are fainter than fresh, however well you dry them. Thyme, rosemary, sage and mint are the ones that reward the effort.

Where to learn more

The National Center for Home Food Preservation publishes the tested drying methods that extension offices teach from.
The Herb Society of America posts a free Herb of the Month profile and a recipe blog, and its local units run garden tours and workshops.
Your county extension office and its Master Gardener volunteers answer growing questions for free and know which herbs survive winter where you live.
Public and botanical gardens often keep a labeled herb garden, the fastest way to see, smell and compare thirty herbs in one visit.

Free references to keep open

A wooden wall cabinet with a wire door, its shelves full of glass jars of dried herbs — A wall cabinet of jarred herbs

Open round tins of set yellow-green salve laid out on a dark cloth

Why the kit looks like this

Six essentials, then the oil and salve extras

The six essentials cover growing, drying, storing and brewing, and at their cheapest they cost about what a dinner out does. The recommended lines are what the oil and salve steps add: a scale, beeswax, tins and cheesecloth, plus snips and labels that make every harvest easier. Olive oil comes from your pantry and the heatproof jar from your cupboard, so neither is on the list. The dehydrator is the only large purchase and it can wait until you know whether your climate needs it.

Stock the herb shelf

Compare the options on each line, then set your tiers and check out from the shelf list. Clicking a card selects it there, and clicking the selected card again takes that line out. Everything starts in the kit except the dehydrator, which can wait.

Culinary and tea herb seed collection

Essential · Growing

Seed is the cheapest way to get basil, chamomile and lemon balm going, and one collection holds more than a windowsill can use in a year.

budget

Sereniseed Certified Organic Herbal Tea Seed Collection (10-Pack) – 100% Non GMO, Open Pollinated – Grow Guide

4.5(149)

$9.99

Herbalism

What home herbalism involves

Read this before you make anything

Your first month, step by step

Eight herbs worth starting with

Drying and storing so the flavor lasts

How to build a tea blend

What trips beginners up

Where to learn more

Why the kit looks like this

Stock the herb shelf

Culinary and tea herb seed collection

Herb pots with drainage holes and saucers

Potting mix for containers

Hanging mesh herb drying rack

Airtight amber glass storage jars

Fine-mesh tea infuser

Herb snips

Jar labels

Digital kitchen scale reading to 0.1 gram

Beeswax pellets

Screw-top salve tins

Unbleached cheesecloth

Herb growing and kitchen reference book

Food dehydrator with adjustable thermostat