The Portable Herb Drying Shed

Our home apothecary is full of freshly dried medicinal and culinary herbs grown on our land. We have been using various methods for drying: an Excalibur dehydrator, little woven baskets or trays, and just hanging bundles of herbs in the rafters of our screen porch. This year I wanted to make a drying shed to give us a bit more space for the plants we dry in larger quantities.

A simple small shed with removable drying racks is all we really need, but there are rules about that too! Per the county and the village we live in, any permanent “accessory building” (shed, greenhouse, etc) over 32 square feet needs a permit and has to be approved and inspected. Since we have friends who got in trouble replacing a single rotted out fencepost without a permit, we figured it best not to just build a small shed without a permit. I also didn’t care to spend the time and money on getting a permit and inspections for a small shed, so the Tiny Drying Shed idea popped up! Portable, not permanent! We also liked the idea of being able to move it as the sun and shade moved across our land, so portable made sense.

A Portable Drying Shed?

The idea came about from those garden cart designs which use bicycle style wheels, and since I had a spare set of wheels from an old mountain bike I sketched out my idea. (Sorry, I don’t have any actual plans to share at this time but you can probably figure it out from the photos.)

I wanted to keep it simple, light weight, and affordable as possible. Lumber prices are kind of crazy right now and I considered trying to get reclaimed lumber for the siding. Unfortunately the store selling reclaimed lumber is also a bit high on their pricing since reclaimed is now hipster boutique I guess. I had some leftover lumber from other projects so that saved me some on the insane prices for 2x4’s and plywood.

For the siding I decided on cedar fence pickets since they are way cheaper than cedar siding, and they are surprisingly lightweight. The frame is a mix of 2x4’s for the base and four corners, and then 2x2’s for the roof support. For the roofing material I had an old piece of corrugated steel roofing which was a perfect fit once cut into three pieces. (That metal roofing is an example of the high prices for salvaged materials. I had bought that as a display piece when I had my antique business and it was more than double what a shiny brand new one would cost.)

It was hard to find a straight board for the framing pieces, so things aren’t perfectly square but it’s not quite a Dr. Seuss house (which would actually be cool!) It is basic and utilitarian just the way it should be.

I’m not sure of the weight but it is light enough for me to move it around the land myself (and I’m not a big guy.) On flat ground it is very easy to move, going up hill requires a little more work but is still pretty easy. If you even had to push your lawn tractor, well this is much easier than that.

For now the venting is basic a lower vent on one side, and a higher one on the other side. Since the shed is portable, this allows me to angle it so the lower vent is in the direction the wind or breeze is coming from, and the upper vent is on the down wind side. I had looked into solar powered marine or RV vent fans but none had the battery life to run all night or when it is cloudy. I also researched doing a small solar set up with a lithium battery, but for our needs that was way too expensive. So no fans in this at the moment. Worse case I can put a small fan in it and run a power cord to it.

So how well does it work?

We’re located in southeastern Wisconsin where summers are often humid so I was concerned that the lack of fan would be a problem, but so far, so good! In our first test we loaded it up with lemon balm, peppermint, yarrow (on the stalk), mondarda flowers, red clover flowers, calendula flowers, dill, sage, oregano, and we’re curing the garlic in there. Everything was in there for one week and most of it has dried nicely. During that week we had some cool gray days with temps in the seventies, as well as some hot and humid days. Yesterday was baking hot, 105 degrees in the drying shed, but it was unusually low humidity and that helped finish drying the herbs.

Our land has a lot of trees and the areas of sun change throughout the day. The full sun spots are where our gardens are, so it is super helpful to have this on wheels and be light enough to move by hand into sunnier spots as needed.

So I’d say it is working pretty well so far! Other than maybe needing a vent fan for more humid weather, I don’t have any other changes I’d make. I did add another latch on the door to hold it shut tight, the first photo above shows it without that latch and the doors open a little on uneven ground. I also added an eye bolt to each side so I can use a bungie cord to hold the doors open when taking racks out.

What did it cost to build?

I probably spent around $250, but already had some 2x4’s, the roofing, some of the screws and bolts, and the bike wheels. Lumber prices in 2020 & 2021 have been insanely high, so if prices get back to normal I’m thinking this could be built for less.