Today I sat down and just cut dried rosemary for an hour. We still had it hanging over the kitchen door from my old place, from before we moved here, or maybe I had brought it home from work sometime during winter. I had Rosemary written on my small grocery list for work, for things that I can get there, locally and plastic free and organically grown.
“We still have rosemary, did you know?”, I asked Scoundrel over breakfast and he got the sprigs down for me where I cut the yarn that held them together.
We keep our herbs in old jars with simple painter’s tape labels. I like it this way, it’s simple and it agrees with both of us, our tastes in interior design being quite different at times.
Cutting store-bought and hence plastic-packaged herbs from our grocery lists is something we just took on this week, as one of the first things for Plastic Free July (and hopefully many months to come). We won’t be able to substitute our spices but things like rosemary, basil and thyme are no problem. I get them from the farmer’s market I work at and they are fairly cheap during summer. One bundle goes a long way and makes for half an old pesto jar of dried and cut herbs. They also smell divine and look fantastic when hanging to dry in the kitchen.
This was so fascinating, by the way! On top is our own, air-dried rosemary and on the bottom is the freeze-dried stuff from the supermarket. It surely holds the colours better but I’m so happy with the rustic appeal of the home-spun version. It feels a bit like living in a cottage, but in the big city. A great combination for me, and sitting down, watching something calming or listening to calming music and cutting and storing my herbs is almost like meditation to me. I can’t wait for our sage plant to grow strong and big so we can harvest it, too.
Do you grow herbs or decorate your kitchen with bundled-up sprigs?
Hedgefairy Tales 
I really need to start growing some herbs so I can do this. Luckily even the supermarkets here sell most dried herbs and spices in re-usable glass jars, or sometimes in cardboard packaging, but it would still be nice to grow and dry my own. Is that a cauldron in the last picture?
That’s just my cauldron-shaped three-legged mug. ^^
I always feel that self-dried herbs smell so much more intense!
That is such a cool picture. I like the color contrast between two drying procedures. Thanks for the picture too. It was my first time airdrying rosemary so I got worried at the stark color difference compared to the store bought dried stuff.
I’m happy my take-pictures-of-virtually-everything obsession came in handy for once! Good luck with further air-drying experiments!