Tips for Herbs by Shannon Haas

 

Tips for Herbs

By Shannon Haas

 

Herbs hanging from a hook in a kitchen with a white background, 

near a bookshelf full of cookbooks and tea

Image from Shannon Haas

Have you ever missed the impossibly short window of time that herbs from your CSA are tasty and fresh? If you’re like me, this unfortunately happens most of the time! I’ve tried all of the methods - dipping herbs in ice water before storing them, leaving them in a cup of water in the fridge like a bouquet, placing them in a plastic bag with a wet paper towel…the list goes on and on. Read on to discover some of the ways I’ve managed to stretch the shelf life of fresh CSA herbs over the years.

My number one go-to when herbs start to lose their oomph in the fridge - dry them! This technique is SO easy. You just need a place to hang your bunch of herbs and some string. Here’s what I do:

1. Rinse your herbs under running water. Pat mostly dry (it’s fine if some moisture remains, but it shouldn't be dripping wet)

2. Holding the herbs like a bouquet of flowers with the stems together at the bottom, tie a string around the bunch of stems. Tie it tightly!

3. Cut the other end of the string to the desired length. Tie this end somewhere in your kitchen that has decent airflow and allows the bundle to hang undisturbed.

4. Wait a few days until all of the leaves are dry and crispy.

5. Once you have some time to spare, process the herbs by removing the leaves and adding them to a labeled container for future use. Compost the stems.

Another method that works only with basil is to propagate it. Again, this is so so so easy! Just take your whole basil stem and stick it in water. Place it by a window so that it can get sunlight and continue to photosynthesize. After a week or so, the part of your basil stem that’s in the water should pop out some roots! You can then feel free to leave it in the water and allow it to continue growing this way, or for more success try potting it up in soil. As always, when you remove leaves from the basil plant to use in a recipe, pinch the top leaves off so that the plant will create new shoots and continue to produce leaves.

I hope you will try some of these methods for extending the length of time you can use herbs from the CSA. It’s always exciting to use them during non-CSA months! If you have other herb-related tricks or tips, please share them in the comments.

 

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Interested in learning more about the Norwood CSA? Check out our Info Page: https://norwoodfoodcoop.blogspot.com/2021/10/how-to-join-norwood-csa.html