Harvesting Chamomile
When, How & What Parts to Pick

It's always fun when chamomile harvesting time rolls around. 'Tis the season to start brewing fresh chamomile herbal tea!  

By early summer (that's sometime toward the end of June here in the northeastern US), spring-sprouting chamomile plants start to bloom.   

At first, you'll see a few little daisy-like flowers at the tips of the plant's feathery stems.

Then, seemingly overnight, you'll have blossoms aplenty.

When to Harvest Your Chamomile

The best time to harvest chamomile is when the plant's flowers have opened for the day, but before they've been subjected to the beating sun. 

What do I mean by "opened for the day"?

Chamomile flower petals are a lot like the sun. They'll rise in the morning ...

10:00 a.m. ~ Petals Up

 ... and go back down at night.

8:00 p.m. ~ Petals Down

Once the morning dew has burned off and the flower's petals are  up, the chamomile blossom is ready for harvesting.

Go ahead and pick to your heart's content. The more you harvest, the more your plant will bloom.

How to Harvest Chamomile

You'll use the flower heads for making tea. The whole  flower, not just the petals.

So the goal here is to separate the flowers from their stems, as closely to the base of the flower head as possible.  (The stems have kind of a bitter flavor. We don't want that in our tea, no siree!)

Here are three different ways to do it:

Snip

Finger "Rake"

Pinch

1. Snipping.  Using small scissors, go through the plant and snip off the flowers one by one. Tedious, but effective.

2. Finger "Raking". With your hand facing palm up, carefully rake your fingers through the plant, pulling up very gently on the flower heads to remove them from the plant. Go easy! You don't want to uproot the plant.

3. Pinching. Using your thumb and forefinger, take hold of the stem at the base of the flower head, and "pop" the blossom off the stem. This is my preferred method. It's like deadheading ... with a delicious reward for your efforts!

What about cutting entire stems of chamomile? Sure, you can do that if you want. But before you do ...

Have a look at the entire length of the stem. Do you see new buds forming lower down? Let them grow! They're soon-to-be tea.  :-)

more about chamomile ...

Chamomile 101

Growing Chamomile

Preserving Chamomile

Making Chamomile Tea

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