General Guidelines for Harvesting Herbs

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General Guidelines for Harvesting Herbs

No matter whether you are harvesting leaves, stems, or flowers, always

gather them on a sunny day after the dew has evaporated off the plants, but before

the full heat of the day has filled the garden. For plants with volatile

oil, such as mints and lemon balm, just before noon is a good time to harvest.

By then the oils have had a chance to reach the leaves, but have not yet been

drawn off by the day's heat. Rain washes away some of the aromatic oils from

many herbs, so after a rainstorm wait a day, preferably two or three, before

harvesting in order to let the plants' oils collect again. Unless it is time to harvest the entire plant, think of your harvesting as a

pruning of the plant or the herb patch. To allow most plants to survive

after selective harvesting, never pick more than one-third of their available

harvest, or better yet only one-fourth to be safe. And if you are at all

uncertain about how much selective harvesting the plants can tolerate, start out by

taking only one-tenth. Be sure to observe the herbs during that season and

the next, noting well the effects of the harvest.

The plants you gather should be healthy and should not be picked from any

place where they have been exposed to noxious fumes from cars or chemicals used

in agriculture. You have more control over this aspect of harvesting if you

have grown your plants at home than if you are collecting from the wild.

Foragers must not only be careful of trespassing on private property and

disturbing the habitat when collecting wild plants, they must also be very skilled at

avoiding wild places that have been sprayed with herbicides or pesticides.

Avoid picking herbs from alongside highways, next to farm fields (unless you

know the farm is organic), marshes that may have been sprayed for mosquitoes,

forests that may have been sprayed for gypsy moths in summer, and even close

to your neighbor's fence if he used herbicides on his lawn. With tender, nonwoody stemmed herbs, gathering of leaves, stems, or flowers

can be accomplished easily with scissors or a sharp knife. Plants with tough

or woody stems will require small pruning shears at gathering time. Generally

speaking, it is better for the plant you are harvesting, as well as for the

final dried herb, if you harvest whole branches or stems, rather than

stripping off leaves and leaving the stripped stems and branches on the plant. Herbs

with flexible stems such as mint, oregano, pennyroyal, and lavender are easy

to pick whole and strip later when they are dry. When you strip the dried

herb from its stem or branch, try to keep the leaves as whole as possible. This

helps preserve their healing properties longer. When you are harvesting

hairy or prickly plants like comfrey, borage, nettles or mullein, wearing heavy

gloves will make the experience much more pleasant.

You can also harvest material from plants with more woody stems, and parts

of trees, as long as you are careful to harvest the parts as if you were

pruning the plant. Some plant parts, such as oak leaves or elderberry leaves, may

be easier to harvest by picking each leaf separately; but as a general rule,

the harvesting-by-branch method works best. If you intend to use only the

herb's leaves, hang the harvested stems or branches upside down in bunches for a

few days. This will bring the sap present in the stems or branches into the

leaves. Then, you can spread the leaves on screens in thin layers until dry.

If you will use the whole branch no hanging is necessary. Harvesting roots and bark You will find the task of digging up the roots of herbaceous plants, such as

dock, dandelion, or comfrey, a simple one if you have properly prepared

their growing bed. In cultivating long-rooted plants, you should create a deep

bed that is porous and well aerated, so that you can easily harvest roots by

hand. For uncultivated plants growing in soil that is compacted, digging up

roots is more of a challenge. A shovel with a long, thin blade is helpful. Dig a

hole straight down and to one side of the root. Gradually remove soil on the

side of the hole toward the root. Then simply pull the root sideways into the

hole. This method will damage the root less than the common practice of

digging down all around the root and then pulling it up. This is especially true

when the root is deeper than one shovel-length.

Often, the healing parts of trees come from the inner bark of their roots,

trunks, or branches. This presents more of a problem to the conscientious

harvester, because removing the bark from standing timber disfigures and injures

the trees, and digging up roots can be equally traumatic. An obvious solution

is to use the bark of branches that may need pruning anyway; rather than

ruining a strong living tree.

Unfortunately, the bark from the trunk is more efficacious than the bark

from branches, and the bark from roots is more potent than trunk bark. So

another way to avoid cutting down healthy trees is to find trees that are being cut

down anyway; or if you are harvesting from your own orchard or woodlot,

select trees that need thinning or removing. Likely candidates for root or trunk

bark include orchard trees that are too old and are being removed; young

trees that need thinning; trees that must be removed because they are in the way

of a road, house, power line, or scenic view; and trees that have been

injured by lightning, cars, animals, or weather.

You can gather the root bark safely from healthy trees if you do it as

though you were giving the tree a mild root pruning. To collect roots from a

living tree, dig down at the outermost edge of the tree's root range. The roots'

circumference will fall roughly parallel with the circumference of the tree's

branches. Root bark, like trunk bark, gets thicker as trees get older, so very

young trees will not provide much. When harvesting for root bark, be very

careful to avoid cutting main roots. Find a moderate-size root (the smaller the

root, the less potent it is) and cut it out cleanly with pruning clippers,

an ax, or a saw.

The twigs and small branches of any tree whose bark is used for healing

purposes can be used instead of the trunk bark. These are cut in the spring when

the sap rises. Treat it as a pruning. Strip off the small branch's inner bark

and cut it into small pieces before drying. Simply chop and dry the tiny

twigs.

Usually it is the living cambium layer of roots, trunks, and branches that

is used in herbal healing. The methods used to expose this soft inner bark may

vary with each tree. But to begin with you can scrape, chop, cut, or pry off

the coarse outer bark. Several implements come in handy for this task. A

knife with a strong, sharp blade and point is good for scraping bark off roots

that are not very thick and hard. A small, sharp hatchet can separate chips of

inner bark from the heartwood of the branch you have harvested. A broad

chisel and a hammer can also be used to chip off inner bark. A machete, if you

know how to handle one, can be used to remove outer or inner bark. Whatever implement you use, be sure it is not only sharp, but easy to

handle, and comfortable to hold. After removing sections of the outer bark, cut

down through the cambium layer with a knife or chisel, depending how hard and

thick the wood is. Then remove this inner bark in strips, squares, or chips,

whichever is easier. Cut the bark into small pieces before drying it in the

shade or in a warm place for several weeks.

Whether you are gathering plants in your herb garden or backyard, in the

woods, or on a neighbor's land, consider the carrying containers for your

harvest. The containers should be clean and lightweight, and they should allow

plenty of airflow through them. Flexible baskets with handles or shoulder straps,

double canvas bags that hang over the shoulder, and clean drawstring bags

made of burlap or other cloth are all good choices.

After harvesting plant parts, try to limit their exposure to sunlight and

prepare them for drying as soon as possible. If you are using a vehicle to

transport the harvest, protect the herbs from wind, dust, or heat. If you

transport your herbs in a pickup truck, cover the bed with a tarp. lf you pile them

in a car, keep the windows open to keep the temperature down and prevent

premature drying, but cover the herbs with a light cloth to shade them from the

sun.

 

 

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