Harvest dill and use in the kitchen

Content

• Harvest dill and use in the kitchen
• The right time for the harvest of dill
• Harvest dill seeds for use as a spice
• Harvest and use dill tips
• The storage of harvested dill
• Tips & Tricks

Harvest dill and use in the kitchen

The dill (Anethum graveolens) has been a very popular plant for spices and in natural medicine since ancient times. In order to get the maximum taste and health potential out of the dill, you should harvest the plant parts and seeds correctly.

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The right time for the harvest of dill

When harvesting dill, a distinction must be made between harvesting the dill tips and harvesting the dill seeds for kitchen use or reseeding. Depending on the time of sowing, young dill spikes can be harvested in part from the herb pot or outdoor cultivation as early as May. Until September, individual dill tips can be cut in pieces of about 15 to 20 centimeters or whole plants for processing or storage.

Harvest dill seeds for use as a spice

If you wish to harvest the seeds of the dill for use as a spice, the sowing in the field must be done by the end of June at the latest. Then the brown seeds can mature until the autumn at the first yellow flower umbels. For easy harvesting and processing of dill seeds, it has been proven to cut off the entire umbels at the time of full maturity and to bundle them into small bouquets. Hang the dill bouquets upside down in a well ventilated place and put clean paper bags over the flower umbels from below. Thus, the seeds fall into the paper bags as the drying process progresses and can easily be filled up for further storage.

Harvest and use dill tips

The cultivation of dill in smaller pots may lead to rather weak growth of the plants, as they are actually rooted relatively profoundly. Nevertheless, the amount grown in the pot is often enough to use cut dill tips for the following foods:

The storage of harvested dill

If you correctly harvest the shoot tips of healthy dill plants in a balanced ratio, you can cut and process fresh dill several times in good conditions. If you have particularly vigorous awesome dill plants or want to create a winter supply, then the question arises for the correct storage of dill. The best way to store dill seeds is to gently dry and store in a dry, well-ventilated place. Dill tips, on the other hand, are preferably frozen for better preservation of the aroma. Freshly harvested dill retains its aroma when stored in the refrigerator for up to three weeks.

Tips & Tricks

If you want a self-dill of dill in your garden, you should leave some flower umbels with seeds at harvest. The chances are then usually good that the dill is looking for a new ideal location as a crop rotation near the old place.

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