Harvesting Mint

Beautiful early summer weather, check. Lush growth, check. Absence of disease, check. Low insect burden, check. I kept tabs on my very small mint bed to find the factors for optimal harvest and I believe I did well this time. I have one small (18") circular bed of "Chocolate Mint" that I got as a small start from a friend last year. It's been prolific!

I asked Isaac to cut it all down for me to 4 inches and gather it in. This is the haul. I thought it was pretty impressive for such a small patch.
 

I began by clipping off the leaves using a scissor but decided just ripping those leaves off was much easier and faster. I used my trusty garage-sale dehydrator for about half of it.

 

The rest of them went on to these pizza pans (I picked up a bunch at auction a few years ago), then into the oven at 100 degrees. This temperature is reached by using a feature on my oven for raising bread dough. Very handy.

 

Here's the final product, after twirling in the blender for a few seconds. The scent is a really intense peppermint. I need to have about twice this much to get us through the winter with our homemade teas, so I'll either increase the patch size for next year or see if I can harvest a second time this summer.