The first Herb Harvest

This time of summer is rather a slack time when it comes to gardening: the time to plan and construct is winter and spring, and the times to plant/propagate are spring and autumn. Now however is the time to harvest and gather, to prepare and process. So it is with my still small herb garden.

These long, lazy summer days are absolutely amazing at helping herbs produce aromatic volatile oils in their flowers, so now is an ideal time to harvest herbs such as Yarrow (Achillea milefolium) and Roman Chamomile (Anthemis nobilis). So that is exactly what I did. Along with Mothwort (Leonurus cardiaca) they make up my first harvest from the herb garden at Cae Non. 2 weeks ago, bathed in gentle evening sunlight, I popped down to the field to see if anything was ready to harvest, and to my delight, these three herbs were. After a couple of weeks of drying, they are now soaking in alcohol to make tinctures; tinctures that will be some of the first stock put into my (soon to launch) business. It’s a lovely thought: Setting up my herbal medicine business using the harvest of seeds I sowed last year: just like my education is reaping the harvest of my knowledge and qualifications.