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How to Properly Harvest Your Herbs?
Have you selected your herbs and, after following the planting steps, your plants are thanking you with a beautiful production? Here are some harvesting tips to preserve all their qualities.
What is the Best Time to Harvest Your Herbs?
The ideal time to harvest herbs is in the morning. At this time of day, the aerial parts of the herbs are firm and full of flavor.
How to Pick the Herbs?
To properly harvest your herbs while maintaining their flavor and keeping your plants productive, you should:
- Handle the edible parts delicately.
- Harvest parts of stems and not just the leaves here and there on the plant. This helps preserve the ornamental appearance of your plant.
- Pick your herbs just before the flower buds bloom for tastier herbs that are easier to store.
- Remove the flowers before they fully bloom to retain all the flavor of the leaves and stems.
- Pick them in small quantities throughout the season.
- Never take more than 1/3 of the plant at a time, except for the last harvest.
Harvest Variation Depending on the Type of Plants
Although you can pick a few stems throughout the summer, more productive harvests vary depending on the type of plant.
Annuals and Biennials
For the first harvest, in mid-summer, as soon as the flower buds form, be sure to leave five rows of leaves on each stem. The second harvest will be at the end of summer, before frost. You will cut the entire plant.
Perennials
In the first year, make small harvests to promote their growth. In the following years, four harvests can be made during the summer (2/3 of the plant at a time). The last harvest is done before frost, making sure to leave at least 1/3 of the plant in the garden.
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Tips and advice
