Siswan's post about the garlic reminded me [View all]

This year for the first time in nearly forty years I'm growing herbs. Our old house location got far too shady and damp under the trees for herbs to do well. The new house has raised terraces along the east and south side and so far our herbs are doing great.

We have English thyme, garden sage, prostrate rosemary, oregano, lemon thyme, tarragon, fennel, lemon grass, and African blue basil, plus lots of various kinds of salvia/sage (pineapple sage, indigo spires salvia, mystic spires salvia), all of which are supposed to be edible. I also planted some edible ginger and turmeric but my husband ignored my warnings about buying supermarket roots and they had been treated and didn't sprout. Next year...

Anyway, what is the best way to preserve the leafy herbs? I'm thinking I might need to get a food dryer thing since I have never had success at freezing fresh leafy herbs. Once dried I can separate the stems, and chop up the leaves to go into my spice jars.

Drying is what is recommended for ginger and turmeric, but I've had good success at freezing the roots and microplaning enough off the solid frozen root as I need it.

The fennel is mostly for caterpillar food - there are butterflies whose caterpillars love fennel - but I might dig the roots. Right now at least one of the fennel plants is blooming - will that affect the roots or should I give up on fennel for this year and plant more next year?

I've never used lemongrass for cooking so I'm looking forward to trying it. I understand that the roots are what are cooked with and the leaves can be used for tea?

Any help would be great!