Categories: Dagnija Bramane

Are there any regularities of collecting and desiccation? You named those herbs. Maybe you could tell me, if the moon phase is important, what the rules are, how herbs are desiccated, how they are stored, what general conditions of herb collecting are preserved in your family from earlier times?

It is different for every plant, though there are some common features. A plant has to be collected, it contains most of the necessary substance when the plant is in the process of blooming. The best time is the new moon. However, one shouldn’t take that moon phase too seriously, but rather that the herb is in bloom. And the best time for collecting herbs during a day is about twelve – the noontime from one to two to three, in this period the plant contains most of the active substance. Towards the evening, the active substances move to other parts of the plant and its roots. In many herbs, it is necessary to collect only the flowers rather than the whole plant, because flowers contain most of the active substance. However, there are such plants that should be collected at night, they are night plants and are active at night. There are also plants that should be collected in autumn, especially all the roots that have to be dug; all of them should be dug in autumn. Then all the necessary substances from plant leaves and tops are in the roots. In autumn, all the plants give their substances to their roots, so that the next year it could grow and bloom again. That’s why autumn is the appropriate time to dig various roots. Since a plant is in the necessary period and the process of blooming, we collect them and cut into small pieces, and desiccate them in a warm place – either in the bread oven or in any other oven or simply somewhere in the kitchen, not in direct sunlight, so that it desiccates gradually. Earlier, herbs were desiccated in bunches, tied to the ceiling in draughts in wood-shed, barns, etc. It may be done this way, but there is an idea that if the herb is cut into pieces, it preserves more of valuable substances since then it does not use its substances trying to stay green for longer and not to dry out. What else? How to understand that it is ready, that it has desiccated? When we take some hard part of the plant – a stem or some other hard part – and try to break it: if it breaks, then it is ready, if it bends, then it has to be desiccated more. Then we preserve teas in paper boxes or some bags, packs, but the tea should breathe. The ideal shelf-life of teas is up to three years, well, they may be kept even 5 years, but later, if it is preserved longer, there won’t be any necessary substance. And it is important where we keep tea. Usually we keep teas in the kitchen and the place should not be wet. And it is important to desiccate herbs well, sometimes it happens that there some insects might pervade, therefore everything should be learned and experimented.

Researcher: Dr. philol. Valentīns Lukaševičs, Daugavpils Universitāte