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Plantain has been used as an effective natural medicine for centuries. For use as a cough and bronchial tea, you can dry the leaves and flowers you have collected yourself in summer and save them for the cold season in winter.
Harvest plantain for drying
It takes time for the plantain sown in the garden to develop into a stock that offers enough material for a regular harvest for consumption. Fortunately, in most areas you can also find the plant in nature, which is most easily found during the flowering period. Sometimes the herb is also a disruptive factor in the lawn, the relatively laborious, manual removal of which is only really worthwhile when used as a medicine and spice. If you want to dry plantain for storage, you should do so after a few days of dryness. In addition, you should ideally choose a location that is not dirty, as the plantain should not be washed before drying. Otherwise it can happen that the leaves turn dark during the drying phase and can no longer be used.
The different ways of drying plantain
The leaves of the buckhorn contain a relatively large amount of juice, which can be obtained as an alternative to drying with a juice centrifuge as a natural remedy for coughs. When drying itself, the following options are common:
- hanging the long leaves in the middle over a pole, like when drying laundry
- threading on cords or threads
- drying simple layers in the oven
When using the oven, you should only use temperatures below 45 degrees Celsius and keep the oven door ajar with a wooden spoon. When using air drying methods, ensure that all leaves are well ventilated, otherwise the leaves may darken due to drying being too slow. You can then store the dried leaves in screw-top jars and use them for the following purposes:
- as tea herb for bronchial teas
- as supplementary food for rabbits
- as feed and natural medicine for horses
tips and tricks
Plantain leaves are best harvested from May to September. If you also want to harvest flower buds, there must be enough leaves left on each plant in spring for further growth.
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