Herbs & Salt

The nights have got longer and colder. The vegetable gardens begin to look like graveyards.  You are dreading the cleanup, revealing a naked patch of what was once your source of fresh fruits and vegetables the entire summer. In the far corner all that remains are your herbs.  Herbs well, most of them are hardy and are not harmed with frost threatening.  Basil, parsley, and the others that are delicate need to be brought inside to further there life through winter. Rosemary as well, all though classified in the evergreen family, it will not survive and come back the following year. As the years pass your herbs grow, meaning your patches of herbs ger larger. If you are found with a abundance of herbs and its nearing winter, cut them and bring them inside to dry.  I have a abundance of sage, rosemary and thyme that i have cut, with so much more out there to use. 
The first few days, i just lay them out in my apartment to get a nice aroma in the air.  When they have served there purpose there, i put them on sheet tray and place in my oven with just the pilot on.  I have found that fresh thyme takes two days to fully dry, sage takes three days and rosemary up to five days. ( This is with my oven so please note this will not be the same for your oven.)
Once the thyme and rosemary are fully dried i remove them from the stems, this usually is easy since the herbs are dry they just fall off. I then let the herbs dry more overnight.  The next day i place the herbs, separately in a pestle and mortar to grind up a little, this is done to make the spice more plausible in its uses later. 
The sage is a little different it is a leaf, the leafs take longer to dry, once they become brittle you crumble them by hand first, lay out and let dry overnight.  Using a pestle and mortar grind the sage up, you will see it does not grind like the thyme or rosemary, yet it is a rub.
This is were the salt comes onto play.  Take some old mason jars, or any recycled glass jar that has been cleaned, sanitized and dried properly.  Mix together kosher salt (artisan salts may be used as well)  with the fresh herbs, making you own mix of salt and herbs.  The key here is to make sure your herbs are dry, even mixed with the salt the herbs can get moldy.  This takes alot of work, well waiting really to dry the herbs, but the benefits of using this mix are endless......steaks, potatoes, dressings, salads, marinades, rubs, etc.  For best results make small batches to keep your mix as fresh as possible.  Also remember to keep the excess dry herbs in separate air light jars until needed, dried herbs can be used in many applications, this is just something i thought of doing one day.