HOW TO PRESERVE FRESH GARDEN HERBS

THE GROWING SEASON MAY BE ENDING SOON, BUT YOU CAN USE YOUR HERBS ALL YEAR!

- Marisa Reyes

Instead of letting fresh herbs go to waste, preserve them. It's a great way to enjoy your favorite herbs all year, and the process is a lot easier than you might think. Here are four simple preservation methods you can use from spring until the first frost hits, and I'll show you which herbs work best for each approach.

HOW TO HARVEST The best time of day to harvest herbs, if you can, is in the morning after the dew has evaporated but before the heat has started to strip away plants' natural essential oils. Plants with woodier stems will require a pair of pruners or scissors. Herbs with more tender stems can just be snapped off, no tool required.

Early harvests During the growing season, harvest branching herbs like basil, oregano or mint by cutting up to a third of a stem back to just above a leaf node. This encourages the plant to form new side shoots and continue to grow. You can harvest nonbranching herbs, such as cilantro, parsley or chives, by cutting individual stems at the base. But don't harvest all of them or they may not grow back. In general, try not to harvest more than a third of a plant at one time so plenty of leaves are left to photosynthesize.

Fall harvests For the last harvest of annual herbs in fall, go ahead and cut the entire plant to the ground, no matter which herb it is, as they won't return the next year. It doesn't hurt to harvest perennial herbs, such as rosemary, garden sage or thyme, lightly in fall, but do your larger harvests in spring and summer. If you cut them back heavily in fall, you could encourage them to send out tender new growth that's susceptible to winter damage.