The Best Times to Harvest Herbs and Plant Parts for Most Potent Medicinal Strength
Inside: When it comes to timing the harvest of your medicinal herbs, questions always arise: When do you harvest the roots? The flowers? The leaves? Are all the plants the same? Do some plants have different harvest methods? Here are your answers—-find out the best time to harvest your herbs to get the strongest medicine power from the plant.
Timing is important for herbal harvesting in order to obtain the highest quality herbs for your teas, tinctures, infused oils, and salves. If you’re going to harvest and prepare herbal remedies, you want them to be as effective and useful as they can be. Flavor is another reason to harvest at the right times…you want the most flavorful herbs you can get! Here’s how to know the right time to harvest herbs.
Although you can certainly harvest herbs any time, knowing the BEST and right time to harvest them will put your mind at ease that you’re getting the best herbal medicine possible in terms of potency and effectiveness. However, plants and plant parts are all different, so knowing the right time to harvest requires a bit of skill.
You see, different parts of the plant are usually harvested at different times of the year…and even the day. Traditionally, herbalists made notes and created guidelines to help them make sure they were harvesting at the right time for the plant and plant part. What I’m about to share with you about harvesting herbs at the right time are general rules. Each plant is different, so be sure to reach out to me if you have questions!
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Understanding Plant Parts When Harvesting at the Best Times
One of the general rules herbalists use to determine when to harvest their herbs for optimal potency is based on the part of the plant involved. Flowers, stems/leaves, roots, fruits (berries), seeds, barks, and resins are all going to have a variety of guidelines you’ll want to follow.
Some plants, like dandelion, have roots, leaves, and flowers, which comprise the whole plant. You’ll harvest each of these in different ways. Another example is hawthorne or elder. These shrubs or trees (depending on where you live) offer us medicinal gifts in the spring with the flowers and then again in the fall, with the berries (fruits).
So let’s dive into the different plant parts and find out generalized rules for each one!
When to Harvest Flowers
Flowers vary to an extent, but for most of them you’ll want to be harvested before they’re fully open. This includes lavender, borage, dandelion, goldenrod, and chamomile and others. For flowers like calendula, I actually like to harvest them when they’re a bit more mature, as this gives the powerful medicinal resin on the flower and leaves time to become more potent.
Other flowers such as wild roses can be harvested in the early spring. Just pluck them off the stem and lay these out to dry completely.
When you harvest flowers, the best time is in the morning, but after the dew has dried.
Some plants, like St. John’s wort, have a VERY short growing season. In this case timing and seasonality is also a concern, while a flower like calendula can be harvested as soon as they start blooming all the way up until the first frost.
Other flowers on medicinal trees like hawthorn and elder are harvested in the early spring. There’s usually a short window of a couple of weeks to gather. If you’re harvesting flowers on plants where you’ll also be harvesting berries later on, be sure to gather sparingly so the plant has enough flowers to leave you some berries!
Drying your flowers will depend on the flower! For lavender, you’ll tie stems together and hang them in bunches upside down. For calendula and dandelions, which you only use the flower and not the stem, you can lay them out on a towel upside down in a room with good air flow to dry completely.
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The Best Time to Harvest Herbal Leaves
If you’re harvesting the leaves specifically for the plant medicine they provide, you’ll want to be sure to gather these before the plant flowers. This is another general rule and isn’t hard and fast. Also, if you harvest after the plant starts flowering, in some cases this is just fine. Plants for leaves that also flower as they mature for the season include the mints (lemon balm, peppermint, catnip, spearmint, and others).
Harvest these plants early and often as this will encourage the plant to produce new growth. It’s fine to prune these back to a little over half the height of the stems if they’re perennials. They’ll grow back! Culinary herbs, especially grow back quickly. These include chives, mints, parsley, rosemary, basil, and oregano.
Perennial herbs don’t do well as harvest plants after August as we merge into fall. This is because you don’t want to stimulate new growth within a month to six weeks of the first frost because this could damage the plant.
Some plants, such as lavender and goldenrod, offer stems that produce both the leaves and the flowers. In the case of these kinds of herbs, when you harvest the flowers is also when you can harvest the leaves. You’ll let the stems dry, then “garble” off the leaves and flowers.
Find out how to preserve your basil and make the BEST Herbed Salt two different ways.
Photo by merc67 via istockphotos.com
When to Harvest Berries (Fruits)
Your berries generally ripen in the late summer to mid-fall. You’ll harvest these depending on the specific plants. For example, when I was a child during the 60-s and 70-s and lived in Las Vegas, each Labor Day our family would head to the nearby mountains where we would forage the elderberries to make jams and syrups.
Most berries ripen during the summer and early fall, so just be watchful of the plants you want to harvest from. If you’re harvesting certain berries, though, some of them do ripen earlier in the summer, like wild thimbleberries. This is where knowing about the plant you want to harvest is very helpful.
I can’t stress enough the importance of harvesting only the fully ripe berries. You want the superfood chemicals such as anthocyanins and flavonoids to be fully developed in the berries. We’ve all seen rosehips dotting the hillsides in the fall. It’s tempting to get out there and harvest them early….but these are best harvested after the first frost or two. This is because the freezing temperature changes the chemistry in the rose hip, making them higher in anti-oxidant value and vitamin C.
Find out how to make rose hip syrup here! Photo by Madeleine_Steinbach via istockphotos.com
The Best Time to Harvest Medicinal Roots
Roots are harvested either in the early spring or during the fall months. In the early spring, some plant roots like dandelion, are higher in bitter values. Bitters are very helpful for digestion and are prized in many cultures. Dandelion roots can also be harvested during the fall! In this case your roots will have a “sweeter” flavor, and be high in a chemical called inulin, which is fabulous for gut-health as a probiotic.
The primary time for most root harvests, though, is in the fall. This is because the plant has gone through its entire growth cycle, and is now putting energy into the root system in order to get the plant ready to go dormant through the winter.
Roots to harvest in the fall include dandelion, burdock, goldenseal, Oregon grape root, yellow dock, and others.
To harvest roots, you’ll need to dig up the plant. In larger perennials, the outside roots can be harvested. If you leave the inner roots in place, the plant may survive to see another year. This kind of harvesting is the best way to go for slow growing plants or plants that are endangered, such as Oregon grape root (slow growing) or goldenseal (endangered in the wild).
Perennials like valerian require many years to develop a root system that’s harvestable. I wait until the third year or longer to harvest valerian roots.
Some plants aren’t perennials….they may be biennials like burdock. In this case you’ll want to harvest the roots at the end of the first season because the root during the second year is hard as nails and is pretty much useless.
Some plants whose “roots” we harvest actually don’t have roots at all! They have rhizomes instead, which multiply under the surface of the soil. This includes ginger and turmeric, both of which you can even grow indoors!
Harvested roots are wonderful to add to your soups and stews as they simmer on the stove! This is ashwagandha root.
When to Harvest Bark
The best time to harvest bark from trees is in the very early spring before the tree’s sap or juices start flowing in earnest. During this time, the outer bark is easier to strip, allowing you to take a bit of the inner bark. Be sure not to “ring” the tree. This means you should cut a thin strip from a section and not go all the way around the trunk. In fact, I recommend trying to find branches that have just fallen if you can.
The spring harvest of bark includes willow trees and birch trees. These trees are high in salicin, which metabolizes to methyl-salicylate in our systems, acting much like aspirin. You can watch a video here, where I talk about willow. And in this article, you can find out more about the chemistry of the plant.
Some trees’ barks are best harvested when the plant is more in its active growth mode. These include wild cherry tree bark. Mid-summer into the fall is the best time to harvest from trees high in cyano-compounds, as they’re usually lower during this time of year.
When to Harvest Resins
Resins are the aromatic, sticky, viscous gum that trees such as pine, boswellia, fir, and others emit through the bark to the outside. The resin is a way the plant heals itself from cuts, fungi, insect damage, or if they’re generally stressed in some way. I see resin as the tree’s tears, and in fact, this is actually what frankincense resin is called.
Resins are wonderful to harvest for infusing into oils and to create lovely salves. They’re also excellent for making into incenses, and this is a traditional use of resins for thousands of years.
You can find out how to make Balm of Gilead, a special salve that comes from the resin-filled buds of the cottonwood tree in the spring right here. And here’s an article on how to use frankincense tears.
You can harvest resin at any time of the year, but I like to harvest during the later fall or early winter because the resin has had a chance to harden and solidify and isn’t as sticky. I never take too much resin, only what I need.
Some plants, such as cottonwood or other poplars emit the best resin from the early spring buds. These are the baby leaves of the tree and are filled with lots of incredible resin. What a gift! Find out how to forage for cottonwood buds here.
When to Harvest Seeds
Seeds need to be harvested when they’re completely mature and dry, and this takes place in the fall most of the time. In the cases of plantain and dock, I wait until the plant has dried. This indicates the seed is ready to go. I simply strip the seeds from the stalks into a paper bag. I let them dry a bit longer just to be sure they’re ready to store away.
Some seeds, like mullein seeds, are so teeny tiny they’re impossible to gather. What I do in this case is take an entire stalk of mullein in the late fall and lay it out on a table top. The flowers will drop the seeds when they’re ready over a period of about four weeks. I then simply gather up the seeds. These I love to toss out into areas where I want more mullein to grow in the fall….they overwinter quite well and I’ll end up with a nice little “mullein garden” in certain places on our property.
Plantain seeds are psyllium seeds, very soothing for digestive ailments and constipation! Photo by A_Daria via istockphoto.com
When to Harvest Lichens and Fungi
Another category of medicinal plant life are the fungi! These are comprised of mushrooms and lichens that have helpful body-supporting qualities. Most mushrooms are harvested in the early spring through the early fall. I know we love looking for morels around Mother’s Day here in North Idaho!
For harvesting mushrooms, it’s best that you allow the fungi to mature to the extent that it has been able to release its spores in order to ensure continued growth of the patch. For mushrooms that live in relationship with other plants and trees, such as chanterelles, can be neatly pulled from the point of attachment.
For those mushrooms that live on the ground among rotting vegetation are best cut off at the base of the stem. Now, I just want to say the mushroom fans have some hearty disagreements when it comes to harvesting fungi….so take my words here with a grain of salt.
Also….for harvesting mushrooms, size matters. Again, this is a general rule, but you want to harvest those with a cap diameter of 4 cm or greater. Always leave the smallest mushrooms to continue growing, and pick only about a third or less of a patch. If mushrooms are growing in small groups or pairs, just pick one of them, and leave the rest to continue their job.
Lichens such as usnea can be harvested all year long. It’s best to harvest these off of fallen branches on the ground. Generally, lichens are slow-growing, so take the ones that are already “harvested” by falling. Usnea is a wonderful anti-bacterial lichen that is probably growing somewhere near you!
Here’s a healthy batch of usnea lichen I foraged from the forest on our property last year!
Experiencing the Plants….
These are very general guidelines, and you’ll be able to make your own determinations as you start working with the plants in your garden or that grow wild near you. Luckily, herbal harvesting is quite forgiving, and if you need a plant part, just go harvest it as needed. But keep these harvest rules in mind when you’re ready to harvest for storage and later use.
Once you have your herbs stored up, you’re all ready to make lovely, practical, and useful infused oils, herbal tinctures, and nutritious herbal vinegars!
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Final Thoughts on Harvesting Herbs for the Best Quality
When you start harvesting your own herbs, there’s just nothing quite as empowering! I hope you’ll pick a few to practice with this season!
If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy these related articles on foraging and harvesting plants:
Foraging Juniper Berries (and what to do with them)
Foraging Chaparral (Creosote) (and what to do with it)
Foraging St. John’s Wort (and what to do with it)
How to Make Rose Hip Syrup + Foraging Rose Hips
Foraging and Using Black or English Walnut (article)
Foraging and Using Black or English Walnut (video)
Identifying and Foraging Hawthorn (video)
Foraging and Harvesting Poplar Buds (video)
Foraging and Harvesting Poplar Buds (article)
How to Make Balm of Gilead from Foraged Poplar Buds
**There are literally hundreds of herbalism, aromatherapy, foraging, gardening, and preserving articles on Healing Harvest Homestead! I hope you’ll go explore!
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Hugs, Health, and Self-Reliance,
Heidi
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