how to harvest dill without damage and store tips

Whether you want to use the dill in a garnish dish or in a hot soup above of it, you have to collect your herbs in the first place, in order to harvest dill without damage or killing the plant, considering you are already growing your dill wherever in garden or indoors, you are now in the final step of harvesting and collecting your herbs, you must know firstly how to handle your plant by knowing the harvesting time, and also how to store your dill whether fresh ones or seeds for later use.

The dill plant can be used in the fresh and the seed shape, which will the use differ here, what will face you also here the time and how-to for both types is different, in this topic we will try to cover all the aspects you may wonder about, and to help you also to harvest dill in every time during the year, now straightaway into the details:

 

 

 

 

1 Harvest fresh dill without killing the plant

Harvesting fresh dill from your plant has a lot of uses and benefits, as it has a great flavor in fresh form because it keeps all the oil and hydrants elements inside, making by that a unique additional taste for any dish you cook or add to, therefore, we mention here the following for best harvesting:

 

 

when to harvest fresh dill:

The best time for harvesting fresh dill from your plant is about month and month and a half from the first planting, we are here talking about the planting from cuttings or dividing method, if you grow it by seeds the time will be longer than the previous.

If you are not good at math such myself, you can harvest fresh dill whenever you see in it more than four leaves, you should only consider not to harvest more than the third of each plant to let the dill grow again and again, if you have plenty of dill plants, you can harvest the hole plant as it can be used as it is.

 

how to harvest  dill without damage:

In order to collect and harvest healthy and fresh dill plants, you should consider using sharp and sterile scissors, by using this tool you will protect the planted dill in the soil with the slight cuts, because snipping the leaves just by hands will not be good for your dill plant as it has another negative impact like to reeducate of productivity, or even worst the dead of the plant when using harsh harvesting.

 

 

the use of fresh dill:

There are a lot of things that you can use fresh dill in them, such as side dishes like chopped dill, or used in hot soups, you can even use it in cream cakes, in your hands multiple ways to use and only depends on your creativity.

 

 

store the fresh dill:

There is another option for your fresh harvest dills, which is storing them for later uses, you can do that in two main ways, you can either be storing it by drying it with heat or by drying it by hanging it, for the first (dry dill by heat) you should use a temperature not above 110 °F, this condition will make the dill plant dry and able for later use, it will keep some mild flavor but not like the fresh ones.

For the second one (dry by air) you can hang your dill plants in a place with air circulation which meet the balcony or the hallway, you can even hang them facing the ventilator or air fan, by this way you will keep the most of the flavor of your harvesting dills.

The methods mentioned previously are for the long term storing, however you can also put your fresh dill in the refrigerator in plastic bag and save it, but consider using them after short period maximum of a week only.

 

 

 

 

2 harvest dill seeds without damage

the dill plant produce also the seeds from the flowers, during the growth of dill plant it starts with the leaves, after that it will start to produce flowers, when considering to harvest dill seeds you should let them grow, although you can always harvest the fresh leaves, but it will not be like the ones with the snipped flowers, to harvest dill seeds you should know:

 

 

 

when to harvest your dill seeds

To know the best time for harvesting dill seeds, when your dill glowers are already grown, after that you should wait for them until they fade completely, you will notice that the flowers taking the brown color and start to dry, by that time your flowers are ready for harvesting, you should be aware that those flowers are the ones that contain the dill seeds.

 

 

how to harvest your dill seeds

To collect your dill seeds, put a white tissue in the table and above of it the snipped dried flowers, grab the heads one by one and squeeze them in your hands and let them fall in the tissue, repeat this with all of your flowers, after that you will see the small black points in there, clean the flowers pieces and keep only the dill seeds, according to the number of the used heads you should collect a good amount of dill seeds. dill turning yellow?, read this.

 

the use of dill seeds

you can use the dill seeds in many ways such as potato salad, or above the cooked fish, you can also keep the seeds for later planting, as they are also a long life seeds if they stored in dry place.

 

 

3 harvesting dill heads(flowers)

Collecting and harvesting the flowers in not only exclusive to pick the seeds, there is also another uses for the green flower as they are edible and good for cooking and pickle choice in the main option for them, to do so you should know:

 

when to harvest dill heads

You can harvest dill heads after the blooming time, which means you are allowed to collect the heads once they bloom, you can harvest as much as you want because it does not damage you dill plant, in fact it will provoke it to produce more.

 

 

 

how to harvest dill heads

This is the easy part, you can just snip the heads by your hand and collect them, just do not pull do much or by force to keep the plant stem stable.

 

uses of dill heads

Like we said previously, the main option for dill heads is by using them for pickling, you can do that by putting the heads in the jar with your pickle and let them be, when the time come you will notice a great taste when tasting your pickle making you by that to repeat the process for more.