Recent dry weather good for drying herbs

It has been pretty dry in the garden for the past several days. The plants have begun to show a little drought stess but I’ve been able to keep up with watering.

I took advantage of the dry weather by drying some cilantro. I had some that was started early and needed to be harvested.

There was way too much to use fresh so, on Monday,  I gathered them up in a bunch and set them outside on a wire-top table. The bunch stayed there day and night. Today, Friday, the cilantro was dry and ready to go.

The cilantro leaves stayed on the stems while drying.

I took  a clean trash bag and slipped it over the bunch.  By rubbing my hand over the stalks, I was able to easily separate the leaves from the stems. The dried leaves fell into the bag and in five minutes I was done.

Now I have more dried cilantro than I know what to do with. I compared the price of dried cilantro in the spice department at the grocery store with the amount I managed to gather. Wow! Talk about getting a feeling of satisfaction.