How do you dry yours medicinal plants to preserve? Just let it dry by itself?
There's several ways I know!
If you're just simply drying it at home, the best way is to hang them, just tie a few of the same together and have them hanging in some sort of shade. They should not dry in direct sunlight, as this will make them lose their color and they'll deteriorate faster.
It's also recommended to dry the whole stem, leaves (and flowers if you have flowers) together, and then only to break them apart when you're storing them; apparently that makes all of the oils inside of the plant preserve better in it's dry state!
Other ways you can dry plants is to just set them on top of some clean cloth, with good spacing so they're not on top of each other, or you can set them on top of some newspaper. If I have a big amount of herbs to dry, I'll set them on top of a bedsheet, and then hang the bedsheet or put it somewhere in shade to dry.
The professional way to dry plants is to set them in a space with a dehumidifier; this way they'll look as good as fresh when they're dry, without losing any color! I've never tried that, I've only heard about it.
I've seen some people set the plants inside of the dehydrator; I've also never tried this, but I hear it makes them very crunchy and easy to crush into powder.
This is a trick specifically for humid areas; if your air is so humid you can't set something to dry, you can put the herbs in paper bags, again with good spacing, and the paper will suck out the moisture.
That's all of the stuff I know! I personally have been hanging them dry in my kitchen, and it's worked great. I noticed they dry faster if they're in the air, than on top of cloth/newspapers. Have fun drying plants!
