Dill Harvest!

Wednesday, July 10th, 2020, 8:27 AM - Drying Day-

Hey everyone! If you've seen either of my Garden Tour Videos, (1, 2, or 3) you'll know that I have a garden box, that contains a patch of dill. And the time has come to harvest some of it. If you're not familiar with dill, it's a buttery herb, that has a warm grassy aroma, with hints of lemon and anise, and a very fresh-tasting flavor. It looks very similar to fennel but has a different flavor profile.

It has yellow flowers, that grow in many short stalks, coming from the top of the stem. This is where eventually the dill seeds will form. They have a very strong flavor, that's a little more like anise. Dill weed/leaves are very feathery and grow at random points along the length of the stem.

One of the most common uses of dill is one of my favorite foods. Pickles!

Now, back to the point of this post ;)

I harvested some of the seed bunches, along with some of the leaves. Even though they don't look like it, I will be referring to them as leaves, for the remainder of this post.





For drying, it's best that they have air circulating through the whole thing. So the best way to do that is by hanging them.

















So I hung a piece of rope/string/whatever it is, across the warmest room in my house. Which happened to be my cat room. It has all-glass doors, so it has a greenhouse effect.



Another way is to hang them from a cupboard. If you have a cupboard you don't use very often, you can pinch the dill between the cupboard and the door. It will work the same.

Basically, any way that there will be good air circulation.




Once I did that, I started with the seeds, and clipped a clothespin to the string, and then to the bunch of seeds.







For the leaves, however, the bunches are very small. So I used a paperclip to secure multiple bunches together and hung that from the string as well.



I also took a plastic grocery bag and cut big holes/slits in the side, and hung it under the seeds. Because when they are drying, some of the seeds will fall from the stem, and I don't want them on the ground.






Next... Time
to wait.
 I let them hang like that for 2 weeks.








Once the 2 weeks were over,(they went by really fast like all summer weeks do) I took them down to transfer them to my kitchen.





The dill had changed a lot! All of the moisture was gone, and the vibrant green color had disappeared.




Now to store(and later use) the seeds, I had to remove them from the stem, with as little stem as possible. So over a plate, I gently used my hands to pull most of the seeds off. Then I picked off the few that were left.
For the leaves, I did the same thing, and some of the stem pieces came with the leaves, but it wasn't a big deal.




After that, I put the leaves into a jar and the seeds into a bag.

And one thing about the seeds. I left the seeds with a little piece of stem. If you prefer them without, you can take each one off. If I am using the seeds for a recipe that I need it without the stem, I will take the stem off of the amount that I need.

 After all this talk about drying, I will say that I also used some fresh leaves, to make an amazing dill dip! Recipe here.

If you can ever get your hands on some fresh dill, I really recommend trying it! Or even some dried dill. It's pretty expensive, but it has a great flavor!



Enjoy your short summer weeks ;)

-Jacey