How to Grow, Harvest, Dry, and Use Oregano

Origanum vulgare varieties and other species

Oregano is about the most popular culinary herb. And unless you’ve grown your own or sampled someone else’s homegrown oregano, you don’t even know how potent and good it can be. The stuff you get at the store doesn’t come anywhere close. And there’s more than one type of oregano you should know.

Oregano comes from the dry, sunny hills of the Mediterranean, where winters are cool and wet and summers are hot and dry, and in soils of low fertility and organic matter. To cope with summer dry spells many aromatic herbs like oregano develop chemicals like terpenes that help the leaves hold their moisture in the hot sun. Lucky for us these are what gives us those wonderful flavoring and fragrance compounds. These terpenes and other chemicals also help discourage browsing animals like deer… making oregano, thyme, rosemary, and lavender very deer resistant. Many are even used in perfumes and foods.

Oregano is a low care plant. But you do need to maintain it correctly and know when to harvest it.

Oregano flowers and plants

Oregano is a perennial plant that flowers in late spring to early summer. Its soft green, oval leaves are slightly hairy. It grows to about 12-18 in. tall and about as wide or wider; when flowering to 2-3 ft. tall. The flower buds are tiny green hop-like structures that open with little white flowers. The buds can be used for seasoning dishes, fresh or dried. And the flowers are edible, nice as an embellishment.

The flowers bring in the pollinators and beneficial insects like crazy. But they’re also nice as bouquet fillers for fresh and dried bouquets and wreaths.

You can start harvesting fresh oregano mid-spring, once the growing has started, and continue until flowering starts in early summer. The flowers are great to have in the garden for the pollinators and for bouquets and wreaths, so you can harvest those instead for a while, and eat them, too. After flowering new growth will start and harvesting can continue into fall. And that is the best time to harvest for drying. More on that in “Harvesting oregano” below.

Best oregano varieties to grow

There are several varieties of oregano, each coming from a different region of the Mediterranean.

Greek oregano (O. vulgare hirtum)

This is the one to grow, hands down. If you want the best culinary oregano don’t even look at the others when you go to buy your oregano plants or seeds.

But sometimes things at the nurseries get mixed up and the labels may be wrong. So to make sure the plant labeled as Greek oregano is Greek oregano, do a taste test. Go ahead and pinch off a tiny piece of a leaf and chew it up. If It has a good bite to it, it’s the right one. If it has a dull taste pass it by.

Greek oregano is great fresh and even better when dried. It’s said to be the one that’s found growing wild on the Greek islands.

This is the oregano to use in pasta sauces, pizza sauces, many Italian dishes, and salad dressings.

‘Hot and Spicy’ (O. vulgare ‘Hot and Spicy’)

This is a spicier version of Greek oregano. It grows the same, but it gets taller, up to 3 ft. and has a bit grayer and furrier foliage. You’ll be able to taste the difference if you’re not sure what you have.

Italian oregano (O. vulgare cv. Italian Oregano)

This one is special! It tastes like sweet marjoram. Sweet marjoram is a tender perennial, meaning that it freezes and dies in colder areas. But it can be grown as an annual herb. But since Italian oregano offers a very close flavor to sweet marjoram, is quite winter hardy, and grows in the same conditions as Greek oregano, I grow it instead of sweet marjoram. Use it fresh and dry some for winter and year-round use in the kitchen.

Beware, though, not all Italian oregano growers grow the same plant. Many plants labeled as Italian oregano are fairly bland oreganos. Taste it before you buy and see one you want to grow. Look for the one that distinctly tastes like marjoram. Grab it if you find it.

The flower stems and buds are pretty in dried bouquets and wreaths.

Syrian oregano, aka Zaatar (O. syriacum)

This is a very attractive oregano with furry, gray-green, rounded leaves. It is more of a tender perennial, for Zones 9-11, but I would venture they could go a little lower, to zone 8. It’s easy, and much less sprawly than Greek oregano. But has a wonderful, strong zestiness.

It’s used a lot in Israel and around the Middle East in a seasoning blend called Za’atar. The blend includes this oregano plus other seasonings. Here’s a recipe for you!

This oregano has the prettiest flower stems that are a little short for fresh bouquets but are beautiful in wreaths and dried arrangements. The buds form round, furry structures. Cut them before they open.

Start this one from seed of by plant if you can find it. Grow it the same way as regular oregano.

How to start oregano plants

For Greek oregano and Syrian oregano you can start with seed only if it’s labelled as Greek or Syrian oregano. Even when you are growing the right seed, when your seedlings are big enough, taste them to check if the flavor is strong enough. Choose to plant out only the ones that have good flavor and bite.

See “sources” below for plants or seeds to buy online.

Or you may be able buy them from your local nursery or plant sales, especially in spring. Keep a look out for them. As I mention above, taste the leaves before you buy.

How to grow oregano

Zones 4 and up; Sun: Full sun (6 hours or more); Water: moderate until established, then low to very low

Plant your oregano plants 12 to 18 in. apart. They sprawl a bit.

As described above, oregano comes from a warm, dry climate, so it does not need the water you’ll give your veggies. If they get too much water the flavor will be diluted.

And skip the fertilizers. The soils it comes from are fairly low in fertility. So if you put oregano in rich garden soil their flavors will be less developed and may even favor fungal disease problems in the plants.

Just remember that sun, heat, and infrequent watering helps many Mediterranean herbs develop those intense flavor compounds. Which is what we want from them.

I plant mine into a prepared bed with a little compost mixed in. Then I mulch lightly with a compost and that’s it. I add shredded leaves from our trees as a mulch each year after that to help conserve moisture and to slowly feed the soil organisms for good soil health.

At the end of the winter cut the plants back to the new growing shoots.

Oregano plants last many years. If you let the flowers go to seed, you’ll get many more oregano plants. Maybe too many! Taste them for flavor. They interbreed easily with other oreganos so if you want only the most flavorful then select them and weed out the less flavorful ones.

And you may not need too many oregano plants. They’re productive and strong flavored. If you cook a lot three to four. If not, one or two plants should give you plenty of fresh and dried oregano. Plus a few bouquets.

How to harvest oregano leaves and flowers

Oregano for fresh use

Harvest sprigs for fresh use as needed any time when they are growing, until they flower. Harvest a few sprigs and put them in a small vase with water for the kitchen to quickly add to salads and any cooking.

When they flower in early to mid-summer you can still harvest the leaves, but you can also use the tiny hop-looking flower buds and the flowers for seasoning. You can dry the buds for later use. See a few ways to use these. But you may want to leave most flower stems for pollinators and beneficial insects, and for fresh and dried flower arrangements and wreaths.

Flower stems can be cut at the plant level and used fresh as bouquet filler or alone, fresh or dried.

To dry oregano for seasonings

I have found that once the flowering is over and I cut back the spent flower stems I hadn’t harvested, a new flush of growth comes up. This happens in mid summer into fall. This flush of growth occurs when it’s still hot and I’ve reduced watering my garden overall, which makes the foliage develop and concentrate those flavor chemicals I mentioned above, and I get the most intense oregano flavor. Perfect for drying to use through the rest of the year. And drying alone intensifies the flavor.

To harvest, cut small handfuls of sprigs, about 6 in. long. Bunch together with rubber bands, tie one end of a piece of twine around each bunch, and use the other end to tie to a nail or something to let them hang, and place in a warm, darkish, airy, sheltered place. Like a shed or attic.

Once the leaves are fully dry (they must be crumbly), get some clean jars with tight fitting lids, like canning jars.

Now you have two options. One is to place the dried sprigs in a jar whole or to remove the leaves from the stems and store only the leaves. And here’s the difference, though it’s fairly minor. If the leaves are crumbled, they lose some of the volatile oils. So you may want to store the leaves with as little disruption as possible. This means using taller jars to store dried oregano stems and breaking them only a little. So when you go to use it you remove the leaves and crumble them as needed.

Crumbling opens the dried leaves to release those wonderful flavor compounds.

The other option is to crumble a lot or slightly and put them into a smaller jar. You’ll lose a little flavor, but with Greek oregano, you’ll still have a lot left. Way more than anything else you can get.

To dry oregano flower stems cut at the plant level, bunch and hang to dry… or place upright in a container to dry.

Sources for oregano plants and seeds

Johnny’s Seeds:  True Greek oregano seed, and wild marjoram, and Zaatar (Syrian oregano)

Richter’s Herbs: True Greek oregano seed and plants, and Syrian oregano plants.

Morningsun Herb Farm: They have a large variety of oreganos available for mail order, though availability may be limited. (Plus they have a host of ornamental oreganos to die for.)

Pinetree Garden Seeds: Zaatar and Greek oregano

Shopping at nurseries is a great way to find oregano plants, especially in spring. Be sure to give them a taste test.

Other things for your garden

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