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Reprinted from Times Online by Susan Berry:

IF YOU’VE had success with your herbs this summer, you should start thinking about what to do with your surpluses, before the plants go to seed or succumb to frosts. Distributing bunches to herb-less friends is one option, but you can also store them for use in the kitchen throughout the winter. Traditionally most herbs were air-dried, hung by their stems from a rack in a warm, dry room."

"But to keep their colour and their aroma they need to be dried fast — failure to do so is likely to result in blackened leaves and a loss of the volatile oils that give herbs their distinctive aroma.

If you are air-drying herbs for future use, you should aim to make them dry and brittle within 36 hours. A temperature between 70 and 90F is ideal. You can hang long-stemmed herbs such as rosemary, tarragon, bay, dill, fennel and caraway upside down by their stems. Fasten just a few stems together with fine wire and bend the free end of the wire into a hook. Don’t be tempted to cram too many stems together — if the air can’t circulate, the sprigs may well develop mould.

Shorter or weak-stemmed herbs, such as parsley, thyme or basil, are better placed on a rack. You can make your own by stretching a piece of fine wire mesh over a timber frame. Remove the individual leaves from the herbs or cut off small sprigs and spread them on the rack, so that they do not touch each other. Once the leaves are dry and brittle, crumble them on to a large piece of paper, and then fold the paper to slide the herbs into dark storage jars (light tends to discolour the herbs through oxidation, so a dark storage jar is better than a clear one) and store in a cool, dry, dark place.

To give yourself a ready supply of mixed herbs and fill the kitchen with delicious herby smells, you could make your own herb wreath. Shape a circle from four lengths of garden wire and then bind it with small bunches of bay or sage leaves, wired together. At intervals, use lengths of string to hang smaller bunches of mixed herbs, such as parsely, sage, thyme and marjoram. Attach four lengths of wire, at equal distances, to the wreath to make a dome shape and suspend it horizontally from the ceiling. Use these home-grown bouquets garnis in soups and casseroles.

Another good place to store your harvest is the freezer. Choose herbs that are in peak condition and pick them in the morning, once any dew has evaporated. Remove tough stalks before packing a few leaves (or shoots of small-leaved herbs like thyme and tarragon) into a resealable plastic food bag, clearly labelled. If you have plenty of room in the freezer you could also make herb ice-cubes. Blanch sprigs of herbs in boiling water for a few seconds. Then chop and place in the individual compartments of a freezer tray. Add water, freeze, then bag up and label.

For decoration, freeze individual leaves and flowers — bright blue borage flowers or rose geranium leaves, for example — singly in each ice-cube compartment to add to fruit punches and cocktails.

With sweet herbs, you can make herb-flavoured sugars for puddings. Use scented geranium leaves, rose petals, violet flowers, sprigs of lemon verbena or mint. Dry the leaves thoroughly and put them in a glass storage jar, layered with caster sugar, and seal. Leave in a warm room to infuse for a couple of weeks and sieve the sugar so that you can pick out the bits of herb before using it.

As well as preserving herbs, why not allow a couple of your herb plants to flower, and keep the seed for next year’s crop? Good candidates are thyme, parsley, coriander, fennel, tarragon, basil and marjoram. Once the seedheads are ripe, shake them into a paper bag and put the saved seed into labelled packets. Sow thyme and tarragon in spring, coriander in early summer, and fennel, parsley, mint and marjoram in spring or autumn. Grow basil from seed sown indoors in warmth in spring. All seed should be sown in fine compost, kept moist but not too wet, and, once the seedlings are large enough to handle, transplanted into small pots about 10cm (4in) in diameter."