- Wait for the best time to harvest
- Which parts of plants can be dried?
- Choose flawless plant parts
- How can plants be dried?
- temperature and drying time
- Adapt drying to the plant
- storage and shelf life
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There are many reasons to dry plants. For example, there are medicinal herbs whose active ingredients are available all year round. Or beautiful blossoms that bring back special memories. Drying keeps us the desired plant, but it also needs to be skillful.
Blossoms or leaves often dry well in the air
Wait for the best time to harvest
For every type of plant, there are times that are more suitable for picking than others. With medicinal herbs, both the season and the time of day determine the concentration of the active ingredients. With flowers it is important that they are neither closed buds nor half wilted.
Which parts of plants can be dried?
Which parts of the plant are dried depends on the intended use. In principle, all parts of a plant are suitable for drying: roots, stems, leaves, flowers and fruits. Whole copies, of course.
Choose flawless plant parts
The fresh plant material should be of the best possible quality so that the drying result is convincing and effective.
- only dry healthy plants
- if possible from organic farming
- start drying immediately after picking
How can plants be dried?
Plants can be air dried, oven dried, microwave dried or dried in a food dehydrator. If dried plants are intended for consumption, a gentle drying method should be chosen.
- Medicinal herbs dry best in the air
- hung upside down in an airy and warm place
- Flowers used as decoration keep their fragrance in the oven
- Microwave for quick results
- when only the appearance of the plant counts
- a dehydrator does the drying automatically
temperature and drying time
The drying time depends on the size and thickness of the plant parts as well as the chosen drying method. It can therefore not be precisely quantified at this point. In any case, it should be checked at regular intervals how far the plants have dried.
For the gentlest possible drying, the temperature should not exceed 50 degrees Celsius.
Adapt drying to the plant
The diversity of plants is enormous, so it is impossible for all key data for optimal drying to apply to all plants. Plant-specific information is needed to ensure that the dried plant is what you want it to be.
storage and shelf life
Dry plants have a long shelf life, but should not always be kept indefinitely. Their active ingredients decompose over time and so does the aroma. A cool and dry storage area offers some protection in this regard.
Dry decorations, on the other hand, can be kept for as long as you enjoy them.
The garden journal freshness ABC
How can fruit and vegetables be stored correctly so that they stay fresh for as long as possible?
The garden journal freshness ABC as a poster:
- as a free PDF file to print out yourself