[Helena]

I dry my own herbs each year with success each time. But, now I have jars of basil and oregano and others that are several years old. They still have their color and smell fine..not as strong as this summers herbs..but still use them in cooking. So...how long should I keep them..how good will they continue to be good...hate to toss out jars of herbs...

 

[marinemomtatt]

Culinary herbs I tend to keep and use as long as their flavor is consistent, medicinal herbs I keep one year unless they are root or bark then I keep a wee bit longer.

 

[Helena]

Yes..hate to toss any herbs..still smell wonderful...Thanks for the reply.

 

[Vickie44]

When I start to get too much for storing in my little house I spread the older herbs on the path in my garden in the spring . Smells great every time I step on them as I go about my garden chores

 

[Janis R]

You can use some of the herbs in the chickens nest boxes also goggle natural dewormers and you can use them for that
If you grow your own herbs I would just replace each year

 

[lemonthyme7]

I have used the older herbs and blended them into a powder in blender and combined with baking soda to use as a carpet freshener powder. It smells great no matter what you throw in there and so much better then the strong perfume smelling ones from the store. Best of all, they are still useful!

 

[bmustang]

We try to store our herbs 1 to 2 years. This year we took it to a new level. We have our wall spice rack, but needed a way to store the extras for each herb. Settled on storing them in half pint wide mouth canning jars. We then can use our vacuum sealer on them. Works great and makes storage easy. I've also put them on a rotational system. For most of our herbs, at the beginning of the season we empty all of the canning jars and put the old stuff in the spice rack so it gets used first.