Storage Option for Home Apothecary

When you have a smallish house with limited storage options, it can be difficult to figure out how to store all the jars of dried herbs/botanicals for making teas, tinctures, gins, spice blends and skin care products. I have accidentally discovered a very space-efficient option that can fit into a hallway without taking up too much space.

Having used up all my available storage space options in the rest of the house, I began eyeing up my hallway and wondering whether there was any way that I could squeeze some shelving in without impinging on the ability to use the hall or making it look too cramped. I found a CD/DVD storage unit online that had adjustable shelving and wasn’t very deep. I mocked up the size in the hallway and asked everyone who came to my place whether they thought it would work.

After a unanimous decision that this would definitely be a workable option, I ordered the shelving unit and assembled it. Initially I adjusted the shelf heights to fit the range of different jars and bottles that I had things in and it seemed to be working well. But over time I realised that by grouping things according to container size, there was no real order to things beyond a vague collection of botanicals that I had for teas or gin making being in similar size containers. There was duplication of botanicals used for different purposes and/or where I forgot I already had something, and smaller containers were squeezed into the space so that I couldn’t see what was there without taking them out. I really needed to do things differently.

It was purely by accident that I discovered that original shelf spacing was the perfect size for 3 glass 500ml Fido jars side by side. Then, even better, I discovered that the 1L size square Fido jars fitted in perfectly (lying down on their sides and with the wire fasteners in a particular configuration) to make optimum use of the available space. You can see into the jars and obviously put labels on them to make it easier to identify things quickly. By having uniform jars and shelves, it is a lot easier to keep them organised (I’ve gone with alphabetical order).

So I have gradually purchased more of these jars and now have a fabulous set up where it is easy to find and use my botanical materials. The 1L jars are the most versatile but there are some things that I will never need such a big jar for – so I can mix the 500ml jars in there too (making sure the wire hinge is in the middle at the bottom so that they don’t fall over when they are on their sides). I really like the look of the uniformity of the storage but the space is versatile enough to hold smaller square jars stacked sideways and even to hold my large tea canisters.

In using the space I have realised that it is good to have the ‘working’ jars in alphabetical order but to have quite a number of extra jars that can be filled with new season harvests and then swapped into the main part as the others get used up. I put stickers on the bottoms of the jars with harvest dates for easier inventory management, and when I have lots of full extra jars it is a good prompt to use or throw out the older material.

I do hope that my set up might be of use for others out there – even for something very different from herbs and botanicals. I’d love to hear how else you have used it.