Hot Springs Greater Learning Foundation

Thermopolis, Wyoming

Folklife & Foodways

Folkways

Harvest Time

Early September - Our friends in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri are gloating over their wealth of tomatoes as they talk about their second or third garden planting. Here, in the Great Basin, our first harvest is just underway. The growing season is so short that many vegetables just don’t make it. Anything that takes 120 days is a struggle. A late May frost can mean almost-ripened tomatoes get bit by frost in September. This year we’re trying heirloom tomato varieties just to see which ones might make it. The herbs, however, grow like weeds in the hot sun toward final harvest. Italian parsley, curled parsley, oregano, marjoram, lavender, purple basil, lemon basil, regular basil, chives. The flowering garlic chives provides sanctuary for endangered bees. The dill turns to seed, gone beyond leaves, neglected because the churlish cucumbers failed utterly. Most of the perennials have given up in the heat of late summer. The early golden yarrows are dried, but the late blooms are still bright. Yarrow is an “ordinary” perennial – but it dyes wool so beautifully green or yellow. The deer ignore it, which is another plus, allowing it to overrun its own personal patch, fighting with the lemon mint and catmint.

How to Dry Herbs

The old methods of drying work well here in our dry climate. Harvest herbs in early morning. Cut herbs with long stems if possible. Tie small bunches at the base of stems tightly with string or twine and leave a loop. Hang upside down, out of sunlight, from rafters, hooks or nails. Or place in bunches and string several bunches on a long stick or tree limb. If insects or dust are problems, then herbs can be placed in clean brown paper bags, tied loosely, and hung upside down. Check herbs every 2-3 days; tighten ties as they dry. Of course, a vegetable dehydrator/dryer usually dries herbs overnight. (Celery is best done with the dehydrator; it does not dry fast enough.) Store herbs in glass canning jars. Be sure to label and date – dried, they are often hard to tell apart.