Harvesting Herbs

Picking Herbs

or

Making Hay While the Sun Shines

Preserving Herbs

We've just experienced quite a flood here in Vermont! And still most days have a mild to moderate rain shower. The hours for gardening have been brief for weeks and one must optimize them. After a recent rain shower and more in the forecast, I decided to harvest some garden herbs. As the rain came down, I worked indoors to clean and preserve my harvest.

My little herb garden has grown each year and now contains some hearty perennials -

Harvesting in mid summer is beneficial for several reasons:

• Many herbs have a spreading habit and can create chaos in the herb garden. Pruning contains plant growth, ensures adequate sunshine, prevents crowding, and allows for adequate air flow. Giving the plants more room helps to prevent bacterial and fungal infections in plants which can occur under crowded conditions.
• You get fresh herbs to use now!
• Pruning encourages fresh plant growth and removes areas of insect damage and dead foliage which can become havens for pests and disease.
• Makes future harvesting easier
• Delays blooming which degrades the quality of the leaves as the plant redirects all of its energy to making seeds.
• Pruning off diseased or insect damaged parts helps to determine whether the damage is ongoing.

How to harvest:

Note the branching growth pattern of this mint (Before). A new shoot emerges above each leaf. You want to clip the stem just above a leaf joint - where the leaf meets the stem (During). What remains are two side shoots which will develop rapidly (After). Many herbs grow this way and benefit from this same type of pruning.

This mint is crowding the horseradish and because of all the recent rain, one of my goals with this harvest is to let the sun in and improve airflow around the plants to help them recover from excessive rainfall. The mint will make a lovely tea, fresh or dried for winter use.

The spots on the horseradish leaves look like Alternaria or Cercospora spot, both are common fungal pathogens affecting horseradish and worsened by wet weather. Horseradish will not be harvested until late October or early November.

Collect your herbs in a towel lined basket or basin and add a fresh towel between types of herbs to make separating them in the kitchen easier. The black spotting on this thyme will be clipped off in the kitchen before washing. As the rain begins to fall, it's time to head to the kitchen to clean and dry the harvest

Now to the kitchen to clean and preserve our herbs!!