I harvested over 2 lbs of thyme from a total of 8 thyme plants and yielded 6 oz of dried thyme. I had wanted this report to be more accurate but I had a minor setback because I dried batch after batch of tyme but failed to dry the final (much smaller) batch. I should have weighed what was left but I didn’t. Instead I let it sit in the fridge in a paper bag. For a week. I made a curious discovery by doing this:
Thyme kept in a paper bag in the fridge for a week will dry itself.
However, not to my satisfaction. I would have kept it if I’d been desperate for dried thyme and that was all I had, but it was dry yet still slightly supple making it hard to remove leaves from the stems. I could have put it in the dehydrator to dry it out more thoroughly, but I was lazy, and threw it out.
Please don’t throw rotten potatoes at me!
The amount that was left I estimate to be approximately 4 ounces. Even though my numbers, this time, might not be precise I think it’s still useful information. This is the first harvest of 2011 and there will be at least one more this year. I have more than 8 thyme plants but at least 2 of them are dying and need replacing. What I love about growing and drying my own thyme is that the quality is superior and though it isn’t particularly expensive to buy dried thyme, it is a fraction of the cost to do it yourself. My thyme plants are two years old and have given me at least 6 big harvests already. If you keep harvesting them regularly you keep them from becoming too woody. Plus they look nice in the garden if you do a nice job trimming them.
Although I use a pretty wide variety of herbs and spices in my food, thyme is the one I use the most. I especially like it in a French style lentil soup.