You can pull the whole plant and dry them or just clip the flowers off and use/dry what you need and let the plants continue to produce. If you opt to leave the plants growing pull the leaves from the bottom of the plant and work up.

Drying time will vary based on humidity. From about 4 days to about 14. When the leaves crumble easily between two fingers they are dry enough to bag or bottle.

Thanks!

If you're drying a lot of herbs you may want to invest in a food dehydrator.
My uncle has one for just that reason. (well, he also makes his own pepper blends with it).

They're usually easy to find this time of year, it seems like almost every yard sale has one.

I pick the whole plant or several - like, I usually do more than one basil stem at a time - and put the top (the leaves) in a brown paper bag and secure that tightly around the stem with a rubberband or string. Then I hang the whole thing upside down in a dry place. About two weeks later or so I put the dried leaves into jars. I think the paper bag helps hold in more flavor/aroma but YM, of course, MV.

Great, awesome ideas! Thanks everyone!

Hey tr33hugger, I've done a lot of herb gardening, and the above advice is right on. But for basil, I'd really recommend freezing rather than drying, unless you really like the mildness of dried basil. Basil has more volatile oils than other herbs, and they evaporate very shortly after being dried. Six-month old dried basil can taste like nothing but plain ol' leaf if stored in the cupboard. But if you put it through the food processor and then freeze it, you can really preserve the fresh-basil flavor. Once you thaw it you can stir it into sauces, make pesto with it, dot it onto pizza, whatever.

Also, you can keep the plants growing longer if you consistently pinch the flowers off. You can even eat the flowers in salad -- they're good. Pinch the flowers just below the matching pair of leaves beneath the blossom. Normally, the plant will then branch into two new stems there, and really increase your total yield.

OTher herbs that dry really well are thyme, sage, and rosemary. Cilantro and dill, not so much, so puree and freeze them like basil.

My method (protects the herbs against cat hair):

Cut the stems, don't remove the leaves from the stems. Tie a bunch of 6 or 8 stems together with cotton twine. Got those paper grocery bags with handles? Suspend the bundles (via the twine) from the handles so that the stems are inside the bag, but not touching the bottom or sides. (This keeps the oils from leaching out, and the air circulation will keep them from molding as they dry. Fold the top of the bag over so that dust/cat hair can't get it. Cut some holes in the bag to increase air circulation.

I currently have 8 bags of oregano lined up in my hallway.

I don't dry herbs so have no advice about them.

However, I do have a dehydrator and it's awesome. If you've got space and think you'll get use out of one, I recommend Excalibur brand. Unlike many of the cheap models, they a temperature knob on them, which I find quite useful.