As your Italian Herb Garden grows, you will want to pick your herbal bounty often for use fresh.
The best time to harvest fresh herbs is in the morning. Although if your schedule is not conducive to harvesting herbs in the morning, harvest them whenever you can.
Also, herbs generally have the sweetest flavor, and most tender leaves before they start to flower. However, if that gorgeous basil in your Italian herb garden insists on blooming, there’s no need to give up on it. We continuously harvest basil, oregano and many other herbs, for as long as we can.
And the petite herb flowers are just fine thrown into a salad, garnishing a dish, or chopped right along with the rest of the herb. Mix in some chopped herb flowers into your favorite Italian herb dressing for added flavor.
Harvesting Fresh Italian Herbs
For the freshest possible herbs, snip off the leaves as you need them. If your Italian herb garden is outdoors, you can snip small bunches of herbs to be used within a day or two.
When harvesting a larger quantity of herbs, the rule of thumb is to harvest no more than one-third of the herb plant. This ensures your plant will continue to thrive.
By the way, if there is danger of frost, and you will not be overwintering your herb plant, just go ahead and cut the entire plant down, and preserve it for winter use in your Italian cooking. Visit my blog entries for Drying Italian Garden Herbs and Freezing Italian Garden Herbs to learn how to preserve your herbs for the winter.
Fresh Storage of Italian Garden Herbs
There are two methods that work well for storing herbs fresh:
1. Loosely Wrapped in Refrigerator
Rinse fresh herb leaves gently. Shake off the excess water, and gently wrap your herbs in a paper towel, while still damp. Place your wrapped Italian herbs in a container or plastic bag, and store in the refrigerator. This is the method I use most often to store my fresh garden herbs.
If you want to dry off your herbs before storing them, leave them out in a colander for a few minutes, turning them occasionally. I don’t recommend patting leafy herbs dry before storage because the herb leaves are so easy to bruise, causing quicker spoilage.
You can also leave your herbs unwashed and store them this way. Give them a quick rinse just before adding to your favorite Italian dish.
2. Stems Immersed in Water
As soon as you harvest your herbs from the garden, immerse the stems in a container of water. Cover herbs loosely with a plastic bag, and store in the refrigerator or a cool area on your counter.
If you are bringing leafy Italian herbs home from the supermaket, cut a little bit off the stem bottoms before immersing them in water.
As much as possible, try not to immerse the leaves of the herbs in the water, as they will quickly turn slimy. Stripping the herb leaves near the bottom of the stems solves this problem.
Our lives tend to be so busy. It is easy to have great intentions to harvest fresh Italian herbs from the garden just before cooking. And then, when the time restraints for getting dinner on the table kick in, we pass up on using those fragrant Italian herbs from our gardens.
By having your fresh Italian herbs close at hand, you will use them more often. And that’s what growing and enjoying your Italian herbs is all about.
Happy growing,
Herb Garden Gal
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