Spare Thyme

I have a few days break from the harvester, so I'm doing catchup around the house and putting things in order so I can put a good half day into the garden and yard.  Some rain over the last 2 days (which is what is giving me the short break from the harvest) has helped the garden take care of itself (although some fertilizing on a few things wouldn't hurt), with the exception of a solitary sage plant dying (probably from the heat), things are chugging along.
However that same rain is keeping me indoors, and probably away from the lawnmower for a little bit.  So time to catch up on some things we laid down earlier.

Back on the 5th of this month I put some herbs away to dry.  So it's about time to check up on them.  Although the basil and parsley still have about a week to go, the thyme was nice and dry - so it was time to jar it.

Most leafy herbs such as basil, sage, and parsley are fairly trivial - you simply cut or gently crush up the leaves and put it in a clean jar. Thyme however is a little different.

All those strings and stems are not terribly nice in a dish - when I use it fresh, smaller stems dissolve, or you could wrap it in cloth.  But I like to simply use dried herbs.
All those little leaves have to be removed from the stems.  One way is to run your pinched fingers from the tip to the base of the stem and the leaves will pop off - this is a bit time consuming though, and the oils from the herbs will rub off on your fingers - meaning you lose a lot of that flavor. I have yet to find an ideal solution to this problem.

 Lately I've taken to gently crush the ball of herbs while still in the bag to loosen the leaves - then put them in my baking sifter.

Alternating between gently turning the handle, tapping the sides, and plucking out the occasional stem seems to give me a good separation and minimum handling.

The end result was the leaves (large pile) - the stems (small pile) and some stems with a goodly amount of leaves on it.  These were worked with the pinch method and in the end it was all put into a small clean glass jar.

Sealed and ready for the later months when I might not have thyme on my hands like I do now.

There is still plenty in the garden for use (along with others), but if you have an abundance it makes sense to use it or save it.  The price of herbs being what it is, this is probably the most cost effective change anyone can make to their lifestyle.  The growing is trivial, the bagging is easy, and the storage of even the fiddly herbs such as tyme only takes about 10 minutes. Going by supermarket prices I probably saved around $5.  For the 15 minutes (of total active time) it took, I think it's a clear savings - even if you say 'time is money', that 15 minutes was paid to me at $20 per hour.