It's easy to dry or freeze herbs. Cut a bundle of a kind of herb, such as thyme or oregano, tie it with string and hang it upside down. I use a foldable clothes rack. After a week or two--when the leaves are crumbly dry--remove them from the stems and seal them in airtight containers. Aromatic herbs such as lavender, santolina and artemisia can also be dried in this manner. After they have dried, they can be used in your linen closet or in sweater drawers. I hate the smell of mothballs, so I use these herbs, as well as cedar, to keep my wool sport coats safe.

To freeze herbs, simply fill an ice cube tray with leaves, add water and freeze. Pop the frozen herbal cubes out and store them in a freezer bag. Use the cubes in soup, stews or spaghetti sauce. The taste is as good as fresh picked. Two herbs that freeze better than they dry are basil and Italian parsley, although any herb may be frozen. It all depends on how much room you have in the freezer and how often you make spaghetti. Some Italian cooks prefer to freeze basil in olive oil.

There's plenty of time to harvest herbs or use fresh ones from the farmer's markets. Just remember to round up some ice cube trays since ice makers have made them nearly obsolete; I got mine at a dollar store. Consider which herbs you most often use and that you miss in winter. With little effort, you can enjoy them all winter long.

(KUSA-TV © 2012 Multimedia Holdings Corporation)