Harvesting 101: Basics of Harvesting Herbs, Roots, Fruits & More!

Harvesting herbs is an art! Timing and understanding a plant’s life cycle are key for getting the best quality. Whether you’re new or a seasoned herbalist, knowing when to gather leaves, flowers, and roots is vital to maximize medicinal benefits.

Read on for guidance and essential insights on harvesting!

 

The following excerpt is from Herbal Pharmacy by Betzy Bancroft. It has been adapted for the web.

Featured Image: Rosehips typically ripen from orange to vibrant red. Harvest when most of the fruits are ripe and haven’t begun to turn moldy. These rosehips look plump and juicy even though they aren’t all completely red.

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Harvesting Basics

Most of the time, it’s best to harvest early on a dry day so that the material you pick isn’t too wet. If herbs are wet with only morning dew, they will dry easily. At times, I have had no choice but to harvest on a rainy day. To dry the plants, I spread them out on racks near my wood stove with a fire lit to help them dry quickly. By afternoon, especially in hot seasons, plants have often lost some moisture and have become a bit wilted and less vibrant.

I like to consider a plant’s life cycle and where they are putting their energy and when they are doing it.

In spring and summer, most plants are actively growing and photosynthesizing, and their energy is in the leaves. In late summer and fall they are sending energy to their ripening fruit and seeds. In winter or the dormant season, perennial plants return energy to the root and rest until the next cycle of growth. Harvest the herb when the energy is high in the part you need.

Following astrological guidelines, aerial parts of plants used for medicine are harvested under a full moon, when the light is drawing upward. Conversely, plants whose roots are used for medicine are harvested under a new moon, when the sky is dark, and the energy is drawn deeper into the earth.

Herbal resources often include information on optimal harvest of each species, as do books on the cultivation of herbs. Teachers and elders are also excellent sources of this wisdom, based on their traditions and years of experience gathering herbs, especially for less commonly used bioregional herbs. Your own experience will be quite valuable, as well, in recognizing the right timing for harvest. Here, I offer general guidelines from my experience.

Leaves

I like to harvest leaves when they are fully grown, fresh, and juicy. This is usually from spring to summer but aligns with the warm and moist growing season wherever you are on planet Earth. Important considerations include the leaf structure of the plant, whether basal, opposite, alternate or whorled, and how many leaves are on the plant overall.

How common or abundant are the plants? Inspect the plant carefully to determine where older, drier, and perhaps dirty or insect-eaten leaves transition to whole, more vibrant leaves. For tall plants such as peppermint or marshmallow, these fresher leaves will be found toward the top third of the plant. Plants with basal structures send out newer leaves toward the center of the plant.

It is important to use a sharp tool for harvesting, especially for plants that have fibrous or tough stems.

Common herbs with basal leaves such as dandelion or plantain may be abundantly leafy or sparser, depending on where they are growing. Clip individual leaves from the base of the plant, taking only 10 percent of the leaves present so there are plenty left to support the plant’s continued growth. I choose leaves from the part of the plant where they are most crowded, as I recommended earlier. If I am harvesting a less-common herb like ramps, I am more judicious about how many leaves I take, and from which plants.

Yesterday, I gathered ramp leaves, but only one leaf each from plants that had three leaves. I did not take very many leaves overall because ramps have become overharvested and have been added to United Plant Savers’ Species At-Risk List. I harvested from an abundant, wild area on private land, where it did not appear that any wildlife had been browsing the plants. I find that when plants are in leaf-growing mode, like spring greens, it doesn’t set them back much at all if I take a few leaves from each plant. The plants just put out some more leaves or still have enough to photosynthesize effectively, and they continue their cycle to bloom and set seed.

For tall herbs with alternate, opposite, or whorled leaves, we can snip either individual leaves or cut the main stem near the top of the plant at that transition between older and younger leaves. I may clip individual leaves from a less-abundant plant, or I may cut the main stem of more-abundant plants. For herbs with an opposite branching pattern, cut the plant just above a join; don’t leave a long bare section of stem below the cut.

If you have ever grown basil, you may have noticed that new shoots sprout from the leaf axils on opposite sides of the stem. If you cut a stem just above a leaf axil, the new shoots will be stimulated to grow, yielding more basil for the next harvest. For alternate herbs like goldenrod, or whorled plants like cleavers, snip the stems just above a leaf, again not leaving a long section of bare stem below the cut.

Flowers

Herbalists have differing opinions on the optimal moment to harvest certain flowers, but my general preference is to harvest flowers as they are entering their bloom phase. With plants that bloom over a period of time, harvest when most of the flowers are open, some are still in bud, but few if any are past. Sometimes we have to keep watching our patch for the optimal time.

Or, we may have to harvest over a few days to accommodate variability in flower development. If you are harvesting leaves and flowers, like the top of goldenrod, cut the stem so as to take the leaves at the proper time for the flowers. When we clip individual flowers like calendula or echinacea, do so when the flower is fully open and as vibrant as possible.

Roots and Rhizomes

We typically harvest below-ground parts when the above-ground parts of the plants have died back at the end of the growing season or before they resume growing in the spring. Some plants’ chemistry is different at these times, so we need to consider our goals and needs for the medicine we are making. Dandelion and burdock, for example, have higher levels of inulin in the fall because it is a starch produced to help feed the plants over the dormant season.

If we dig dandelion roots in the spring, the inulin content is lower, but the roots may be more bitter. With biennials (plants with a two-year life cycle, such as burdock or mullein), we harvest the roots in the fall of their first year of growth or in the spring of their second year of growth. We can determine the year of growth by observing the plant.

If it has leaves but no flowering stalk, it is likely in its first year of growth. If it has grown a tall stalk with flowers, then it is likely in its second year. Once biennial plants have bloomed and set seed, there may not be much left of the root because the plant is at the end of its lifecycle.

When I gather a patch of roots, I like to dig one deep hole between or close to the plants, then loosen the soil around it and pull up all the roots through that one hole. Do try to get the entire root! If you cause roots to break off by pushing a shovel into the soil next to a plant and tipping the shovel blade back, the plant will try to resprout from the broken-off roots left in the soil.

From the plants’ perspective, this may waste a lot of their energy. With perennial herbs, leaving some broken pieces of root in the soil gives the plant a chance to grow back, and even expand their patch. Sometimes, though, the root just grows a long crown, or extends the stem underground, and these plants will not be useful to us again in the future for the purposes of creating medicine.

When harvesting roots from large perennial plants such as knotweed, especially with rhizomes that spread out, start at the edge of root growth and work your way toward the center. This way you can harvest younger growth or just cut out peripheral roots and rhizomes without disturbing the crown of the plant. Taprooted plants, including dandelion or elecampane, will require a deep hole, and plants like blackberry or nettle that have shallower, spreading root systems may require us to dig a wider area.

Fruits

Keep an eye on the development of fruits to notice when they are completely ripe. I watch the birds, too, because I know they will begin foraging the rowan in my front yard when the fruit is at the ideal stage of ripeness. Other herb fruits such as rosehips and crabapples are sweeter and softer after a frost. Experiment to learn what the optimal timing is for your recipe or process.

Seeds

Seeds always follow flowers and may be borne on various types of plant structures. Sometimes they are within a pod, such as mustard seeds, or within a dried flower head, such as burdock or echinacea. Plants in the carrot family (Apiaceae) tend to produce seeds out in the open, still attached to their umbel. Other seeds are produced within fruits.The seed heads on a single plant may mature unevenly depending on the rate that flowers mature, and they will often change color as they ripen.

For example, fennel seed becomes plump and green at its optimal time for harvest and will begin to turn brown after that. So harvesting fennel seeds when they are green may involve clipping individual umbels as they mature, because they won’t all mature at once.

For most herbs, we harvest the seeds when the structures supporting them have matured and dried. It may take some careful observation and experience to determine when seeds are at their most flavorful or optimally ripe stage.

Barks

Spring, the rising season when life reemerges from dormancy, is when we typically harvest barks, but there are exceptions. The constituents in barks go through a seasonal cycle, just as the constituents in roots do. For example, wild cherry bark is higher in a cough-suppressing constituent called prunasin in the autumn.

For most purposes, we harvest bark when the sap is rising in the spring, before the tree or shrub leafs out. I like to gently prune smaller branches from the plant, using neat cuts neither too deep into the trunk or larger branch nor leaving any stumps of branches. Either mistake can invite rot or infection into the tree or shrub just like a wound on your body can.

Cut cleanly just outside the join of the branch. I also like to take mostly medium-size growth, not too old and not too young, because my sense of smell has told me that constituents (such as methyl salicylate in birch) are most potent in these smaller but not tiny branches. After I bring branches home, I make myself comfortable for the task of removing the bark from the wood. Use a penknife, drawknife, or spokeshave to peel the bark from the wood, discarding the tiny twigs.

 

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Recommended Reads

Tips & Tricks for Harvesting and Drying Herbs

Getting Started: Basics of Foraging Wild Seeds and Grains