How to Make Herb Vinegar

By Cathy Decleene
Published on July 1, 1983
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PHOTO: MOTHER EARTH NEWS STAFF
The combinations of ingredients you can use are endless. In this container, Cathy blended garlic, lovage, tarragon, chive blossoms, English thyme, and Dr. Livingston geranium (with white vinegar, of course) to make a beautiful and useful salad dresser.

Last summer, I made herb vinegars and sold them at craft shows. I found out that they were fun and easy to make and profitable to sell!

I got started making herb vinegars when I was working on a Girl Scout badge called “Food, Fibers, and Farming”. One of the things I had to do to earn the badge was to grow a fruit, vegetable, or herb and use it in something I could eat. I planted dill and made a few bottles of herb-flavored vinegar to use in salad dressings and for other cooking purposes. When I found out how easy it was to do, I decided that selling the bottles would be a good way to earn money. So I went to work.

Getting Started: How to Make Herb Vinegar

Since the only plants I had ever grown before were vegetables, I asked my mom some questions before I got started. The first one was “What herbs can I plant from seed?” I found out there are many kinds of herbs that can be started from seed. Here are a few: basil (sweet or opal, chervil (needs light to germinate), dill garlic (from cloves) and marjoram parsley cage salad burnet thyme.

I knew that some herbs can best be started by clipping stem pieces, called cuttings, and rooting them. So my next questions were “How do I plant cuttings?” and “What herbs can I plant from cuttings?” I found out that to start an herb from a cutting, a person snips off part of a “parent” plant and places it in water, soil, or peat moss (see below for additional information on starting cuttings). Here are some good herbs to raise from cuttings: lemon balm mint (any kind), oregano pineapple, sage, savory, scented geraniums and tarragon.

Later on, I found out that there’s still another way to start new plants … dividing. To split an herb this way, take a small garden shovel and divide the plant in two at its roots. Dig up one section and replant it somewhere else. Here are some herbs you can plant from divisions: chives, lemon balm, lovage, mint (any kind) and tarragon.

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