General Guidline for Harvesting Herbs

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Misty L. Trepke

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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 shoul 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.

 

" To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or

that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only

unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American

public " .

Theodore Roosevelt

 

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