The Tea Herbs Are Ready For Harvest

For everything there is a time for harvest.If you look toward the back two rows, you can see that the sage and mint are ready to harvest and dry. Yesterday I finished drying and putting up Dandelion Tea. Today I washed and put several kinds of sage in the dryer. 

In many places you can dry your herbs outside, and you often can here also in late August. But at the moment, the humidity is too high to dry, so the best way is to use an electric dryer.  Tomorrow that empty jar will be filled with Sage Tea. After the Sage leaves the dryer, the Mint will enter. I have four kinds of mint drying, and each has been growing wild. I have lots of mint!

I also powder the herbs and always keep jars of powdered herbs on hand, but this is the time to stock up on medicinal teas for the cold season. Powered herbs are easy to use in cooking and for making things like herbal honeys, but nothing works better than a hot cup of the correct tea for the need. 

This is my second cutting for both Sage and Mint. The first was for powder, this is for tea, and the next one of mint will be for hydrosols. This is done with a small steem distiller. I use a lot of mint hydrosols during the year in the home. 

If you want to know what is in your spices, teas, and hydrosols, then growing your own is one way to do that. They are easy to grow, harvest, and dry or distill. When the herbs that are used for soups are ready, they will be frozen. Each way is important.