How to Harvest Flowers and Herbs to Dry

Flowers used for dried arrangements and other crafts will be much cheaper if you grow your own. However, you have to know when and how to gather them for drying. Here are some tips to help you get started.

To harvest your flowers for drying, you will need some tools. They include sharp garden shears, florist scissor, a sharp knife, gardening gloves, old sheets or table clothes for sorting, metal or plastic water buckets and baskets for carrying what you have gathered.

It is very important to be organized when you harvest your flowers and leaves. Harvest one thing at a time. Get as much of it as there is ready at the time. Then move on to the next. It will be less confusing, especially in midsummer when there are many things that are ready to be picked.

Bring everything you harvest to a central place for sorting. You can use any large open space. A back porch is or a shed is wonderful for this. Use an old tablecloth or blanket to catch the flower heads that fall off.

When you cut large amounts of flowers to dry, put them in a bucket that is about a quarter filled with water. This will get the bottoms of the stems wet and keep the plants fresh until you are ready to dry them. Do not pile bunches of flowers and leaves on top of one another. They are very easy to crush. Try to lay the bunches out flat if you have enough space.

You can use rubber bands to hold small bunches of flowers together for drying. If the flowers are quite fleshy, you may want to remove the petals when you harvest them. Put them into larges baskets as you harvest them. If you are picking whole flower heads, cut them just under the outermost floral parts that are usually green. Place them in flat baskets in a single layer. Make sure the blossoms are facing up.

Try to gather and sort each kind of flower in the same way. It will be much easier if you do this. Such as peonies should be picked with the stems intact. Then place big bunches of them in the water buckets as you cut them. Then you sort them according to how you wish to use them. If you do not know what you are going to use the flower for, keep the head and stem intact and hang to dry.

It is important to not harvest the entire garden at once. If you leave some on the plants, they will keep producing and you will have more in the long run. And, you can experiment with several methods to see what works best for each flower.

No matter what you use the dried flowers for, growing your own will be much cheaper. And, you can grow exactly what you want for your projects. Hopefully these instructions will help you grow and gather all the dried flowers you need for your projects.