Being the resident “crazy cat lady”, our Marketing Director Caroline, rescued two flats of Catnip this past season that were past their prime for selling and were bound for the compost pile. Here’s her experience with biting off more than you can plant and finding a great way around it!
Admittedly, as stated above, I’m a little kitty crazy. My whole house is filled with cat toys and scratch posts and I’m even thinking about buying Cat Bubble Backpack because one of my cats loves to explore! So when offered the abundance of Catnip that was about to head to the big compost pile in the sky, I excitedly threw two flats into the back of my Jeep. I promised myself that I would find room as well as time to actually plant, which I quickly realized upon getting home and assessing my two overflowing gardens, that it just wasn’t possible to find homes for these plants. Not wanting it to go to waste, I decided to save what I could by harvesting the plants to dry them for later use.
I began by clipping each plant at the soil level with a pair of sturdy gardening scissors. I piled the plants up into a shallow tupperware container, with all of the stems facing the same direction. Instead of hanging them in bundles to dry, I simply placed the open container piled high with plants on the top shelf of my pantry where it would be out of the way ( I didn’t want my boyfriend to think it was something to cook with!), in a dark, dry place and out of reach from my two mischievous indoor cats. After about a month of forgetting it was still there, I took the container out and assessed my project. The once formidable pile had dried to a much smaller version of itself, making it much easier to manage.
I got a large mixing bowl, and for about thirty minutes, just stood at the kitchen counter, removing all of the usable parts (leaves, some flowering heads, small pliable stems) and adding them to the bowl. The stems, I tossed to the floor for my cats to play with in between begging for the “nip” I was currently working on. After removing all of the good stuff from the stems, I broke up any large pieces or stems by hand in the bowl. I found two recylced Chinese food containers to pack everything into and popped them in the freezer. Storing it in the freezer keeps them fresh for a longer time, and also triggers a frantic dash for the fridge from my cats, any time I open it to get a Popsicle. Give this little trick a try next time you have too many herbs to handle. You can extend the plant’s useful life and enjoy fresh herbs for everything from your cats to culinary use, for much longer!
