How To Make An Herb Drying Rack (DIY Tutorial)

If you’ve been following along on Instagram, you know that Joanna has a pretty darn impressive urban garden in her yard. Alongside the broccoli and kale and Brussels sprouts, she had a bumper crop of herbs this year, which I myself have benefited from (thanks Joanna!). But even after giving away herbs to friends and neighbors, she had a bunch of herbs left on her hands and, she didn’t want them to go bad. She also couldn’t find an herb drying rack online that she liked the look of, so we put our heads together and brainstormed our own chic, modern take on an old-school herb drying rack. Now she’ll have seasonings from her herb garden to use in her new kitchen all winter long!

DIY Herb Drying Rack

What You Need:

How to Make an Herb Drying Rack

Start by taking apart the baskets by removing the three chains that suspend them. We’re only going to be using the smaller two baskets for this project, so you can save the largest one to use for another project (I think it would make a really cute hanging planter).

Once the chains are removed cut 2 1/2″ feet of rope. Knot the rope about four inches from the bottom. Use a small piece of tape to tightly wrap the other end of the rope. This will help you be able to slide the rope through the wood beads easily.

Add one wood bead to the rope and slide it down until it’s up against the knot. Then, thread the end of the rope through one of the openings in the inner ring of the larger basket.

Repeat this process for the second tier by tying another knot 14″ up from the bottom tier. Use a ruler or measuring tape to measure the rope and mark the spot where you want the knot. It’s important to be accurate here because we want all three strands to be the same length, otherwise our herb drying rack won’t hang evenly.

Add another wood bead and slide it down so it’s resting up against the knot. Then, thread the rope through the inner ring of the smaller basket. Remember that we want the baskets to be upside down for this project so we can easily hang herbs from them.

Now that one rope is done, we need to do the other two. Make sure to space them out evenly around the baskets — an easy way to do this is simply count the number of wire openings around the inner ring of the basket and use that to figure out how many openings should be in between each rope.

Next, gather the fresh herbs you’re going to be using. We used dill, rosemary, sage, thyme, mint, cilantro, marjoram and basil, but you can really use whatever you have lying around.

Gather the loose herbs into small bundles and trim any extra-long sprigs so you’re left with a fairly uniform bunch. Cut a two-foot length of twine and wrap it tightly around the base of the herb bundle. Don’t worry about tying it — as long as you wrap it snugly, it’ll stay put.

Once you’re done wrapping all your herb bundles, it’s time to finish assembling the herb drying rack.

Hook your little clips around the perimeter of the bottom of the top tier and the bottom tier. You can use as many or as few as you like, just make sure they’re evenly spaced out so the rack is balanced.

Finally, clip the herbs to the rack by hanging them upside down by the twine. Hang your herb drying rack in a cool, dry place until they’ve dried out completely. Once they’re free of moisture, feel free to bottle them in pretty glass jars so you can use them when the recipe calls for it.