It’s a great day to start drying our big bay leaf harvest. It will stay off and on sunny here for the upcoming two weeks. Perfect weather to process our first big harvest of this year. I made a few pictures of our view today so you can see how winter is slowly changing places with spring.

About a week ago we harvested a huge amount of leaves from our big bay leaf bush. We had to trim it, since it was overshadowing part of our veggie garden other trees. The past few days we have harvested the good leaves off the branches. What a work. At least it smells nice! Below you can find some progress pictures and a very simple how-to, which tells you how to dry your own bay leaves.

bay leaves harvest

Yesterday we finished filling one bucket. I guess it’s about 5kg of leaves now. Crazy! Today I’ve laid them out on one of our guest beds to dry in the sun. It’s a really sunny day as said, so it’s perfect.

Now we will leave it like this for two weeks or so and then they will be dry enough to place in a darker place. The longer they stay in the light the less green they stay. The more dry they get the curlier they will become. No worries, they will taste the same though.

bay leaves harvest in the sun

bay leaves harvest bed

This bed with a clean sheet and drying leaves makes me happy. It reminds me of my grandmother, who would clean out every room in the house one sunny day of the year to make the yearly batch of tagliatelle. She would clean out every surface and place big sheets of pasta on it to dry, then cut the sheets in small pieces and let the tagliatelle dry in little nests. Much more time-consuming than this, but it brings back that feeling nonetheless.

I enjoy this so much that I must have been a farmer in my past life… or I might become a farmer in the future?

How to dry your own bay leaves

– take the nice looking leaves off the branches
– quickly rinse them with some cold water & dry them quickly
– place them in a dry place on a flat surface on a piece of clean cloth for about two weeks, shuffle them around a bit every other day
– when they start feeling light and dry, you can place them in a dark container which still can breathe (if they are still a bit wet)

After that you can rest on your laurels. You can also find laurel leaves in my shop as wish leaves.

bay leaves harvest wish leaves