Rosemary, that's for remembrance

We have a Rosemary bush in our front garden. And apart from using the odd bit of it in cooking, cutting it back occasionally and appreciating the smell when I brush past it, I've done nothing else with it in the nearly 10 years we've lived here. So I decided it was time to fulfill my intentions and have a go at drying some.

I found a couple of websites explaining how to do it, and mostly used this one.

I cut 16 springs, deciding that for my first go, I'd just try two bunches of it. Rinsed them under the tap and then left them for a couple of hours on a clean teatowel to dry off.

I then made my two bunches. The webiste said to tie with cotton string - I had none, but another site I'd seen had used elastic bands, so as I had some circles of elastic some fat quarters I'd recently bought had been rolled in, I grabbed a couple of those to use.

Instead of attaching them to a hanger, I used Christmas-tree-decoration hooks (aka paperclips)

Then I hung them from a shelf in the airing cupboard and left them there for the 4 weeks specified - having a quick peek at them and enjoying the smell when I went into the airing cupboard for things.

After 4 weeks they looked like this.

I pulled off the leaves (this stage smells great!)

 I put the leaves in little jars (the idea being they bill be crumbled into cooking when used rather than at this stage, which should keep their flavour and fragrance for longer) and swept the Kitchen floor (the dried leaves to have a tendency to go all over the place).

Then I went and cut the next batch, which got jarred-up yesterday. I'm hoping they will be a nice addition in some Christmas goodie boxes. I know very little about gardening (something I'm hoping to learn more about) but I have a feeling that now it's getting colder and winter is approaching it's not the best time to be harvesting, so I shall leave doing another batch until the warmer weather returns.