Harvesting Your Herb Garden
Harvesting Your Herb Garden
.Making the most of your herb garden that you worked so hard to create will present many delights.
.You have watched it flourish and grow into a spectacular array of shapes and colors. Sure you have picked a few sprigs and leaves and added them to your dishes. You have enhanced the flavor of some of your old recipes, but you really want more for your hard efforts.
When you harvest will depend
on what your end results for the herbs are going to be. If you want to make sachets from lavender you will want to cut them when the flowers are in bloom. Tie small bunches together and hang up to dry without touching each other or any other surface. If you wanted to have dried rosemary for a flower arrangement or a wreath, you could either cut it with or without the flowers, but you would also want to hang it up to dry.
Maybe you would like to make fresh herb and flower arrangements, then you would harvest the best-looking sprigs. If the final result was for a potpourri combination, those would be cut down and mixed with maybe other things such as pine cones or dried flowers, etc. You could also have a combination of fragrant leaves and flowers that are dried and stuffed into a sachet for a drawer freshener.
Interesting uses for herbs go from skin cleansers, herbal scrubs, bath bouquets, bath oils, herbal shampoo, hair rinse and fragrant colognes. These are just a few of the cosmetic alternatives to the ingredients that you find on the store shelves with added ingredients that you can’t pronounce.
Adding sprigs of herbs, leaves or even garlic gloves to make flavored oils or vinegars. When the herb will remain in the solution for the beauty of the presentation, be sure to pick the most eye-appealing ones. If you are gathering herbs to make tea for the future, be sure to carefully pick the best leaves and dry them thoroughly, before storing in a jar.
When drying herbs, it is best to air dry them, this will help preserve their flavor. Hang them up to dry or lay them on a screen, if using this method be sure to turn often. You can use a microwave, dehydrator, or the oven, but it is not as good as air drying. If you are drying them to cook with later, once dry store in an air tight container and be sure to label the jar.
Freezing herbs for future use is easy. You can do this with a few different methods. Lay cleaned herbs on a baking sheet lined with wax paper. When frozen, place in a sealed bag and freeze until ready to use. Another method is to take the stalks and with tongs, plunge into boiling water, when the color brightens, immediately plunge the herbs into ice water, this will stop the cooking. Place on paper towels and let dry. When these are cool, you can either leave them on the stalk or chop them. Bag them in the amount you would use for a recipe. Another method is to chop up cleaned herbs and place them in an amount that would be good for a recipe into an ice cube tray. Add enough boiling water to cover each cube and then freeze. When they are frozen solid take out of tray and place in a sealed bag. Now you can just go to the freezer and toss in an ice cube or two in your favorite recipe and have that fresh herb taste all year round.
If you are finding when harvesting there are insects, the following will be helpful. Place herbs in a bowl or sink of cool water and add one or two tablespoons of salt, soon the bugs will float to the top. My mother used to do this when she would bring in lettuce from the garden, soon there would be nothing lurking in your lettuce leaves to ruin your appetite. ………….. Enjoy your harvest!
