Oregano is an awesome plant to grow. It’s drought tolerant, continues to expand through underground rhizomes, and is a top-tier culinary herb.
Now it’s the growing season, and your oregano plant is bushy and ready for a big harvest. Knowing how to harvest oregano correctly encourages the plant to continue producing more and more harvests throughout the season.
When the end of the season approaches, you harvest the plant differently to prepare it for dormancy. We’ll go over all of this in detail below.
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Quick Answer: How To Harvest Oregano
The best time to harvest oregano is in the morning after the dew has dried. Choose healthy, green stems and cut them just above a set of leaves, leaving plenty of growth on the plant. During the growing season, harvest no more than about one-third of the plant at a time so it can quickly regrow.
When Is Oregano Ready to Harvest?
You do not need to wait until the end of summer to harvest oregano. In fact, I would encourage your first harvest to be early in the season. The more harvests you do, the better for the plant and better for your spice rack.
Oregano is ready to harvest once the plant is established and has plenty of healthy, leafy growth. For the best flavour, I like to make larger harvests before the plant is in full flower. Once flower stems appear, the oregano is still perfectly usable for cooking or eating, so don’t worry if you missed that ideal window.
Should You Harvest Oregano Before or After It Flowers?
Oregano is commonly harvested just before flowering because this is when the leaves tend to have their strongest aroma and flavour. However, flowering doesn’t suddenly make your oregano unusable.
So you got busy with summer life and the next thing you know, you’re asking yourself: “My oregano is already flowering. Is it too late?”
No. You can still harvest it.
Simply remove the flowers or flower stems before drying oregano.
What Time of Day Is Best to Harvest Oregano?
There are two times of day that are best for harvesting oregano:
- Mid-morning, once the dew has dried, is ideal, particularly when you’re doing a large harvest for drying.
- Early evening or late afternoon when the sun has passed it’s mid-day peak. Think around 4:00PM onwards.
How to Harvest Oregano Step by Step
Follow these steps and you’ll have a successful oregano harvest.
Step 1: Choose Healthy Stems
Look for healthy, bright green stems without signs of disease or significant insect damage. If you notice damaged or diseased stems while you’re harvesting, prune those separately rather than adding them to the oregano you’re bringing into the kitchen.
Step 2: Cut the Oregano Above a Set of Leaves
Using cleaned garden pruners, follow a healthy oregano stem down toward the base of the plant. Make your cut just above a set of leaves, leaving several sets of leaves on the plant below your cut. New growth can develop from the remaining nodes, helping the plant fill back in after harvesting.
Step 3: Don’t Harvest the Entire Plant *IMPORTANT*
As a general rule, I avoid removing more than about one-third of the plant during a regular harvest. Leaving plenty of healthy growth behind helps the oregano recover quickly and gives us the chance to harvest it again later in the season.
Plus, the bees absolutely love oregano flowers so leave some to flower for pollinators.
Step 4: Let the Oregano Regrow
In good growing conditions, you’ll usually begin seeing fresh growth fairly quickly. How long it takes before there’s enough oregano for another large harvest depends on the weather, water, sunlight and the health of the plant.
Does Oregano Grow Back After Harvesting?
Yes, cutting oregano correctly encourages new growth from the remaining stems nodes and allows you to harvest again later in the season.
It’s so important for the plant and your own pantry to continue to harvest so the plant will grow.
How to Pick Oregano for Cooking
Picking oregano for cooking is fairly simple. All you need to do is follow the instructions above: pick green, healthy stems, harvest from the bottom of the stem, but not too far down.
If you’re looking for some oregano to add to pasta sauce, you won’t need more than a few stems. When harvesting, look for ones that might be ready to flower soon or the best looking stems to eat.
How Much Oregano Can You Harvest at Once?
During the early to mid season, only harvest about 1/3 of the plant at a time so it has to ability to regrow. If you aggressively harvest the plant it will take longer – maybe the entire season, to grow back.
If the plant is young, I would be even more weary about how much to harvest at once as you could overly stress the plant.
Toward the end of the growing season, you can take a larger final harvest if you want to preserve oregano for winter. I still avoid cutting the plant completely to the ground. Leaving some growth behind gives the crown a little extra protection heading into cold weather.
Here in Zone 5, I usually make my final large oregano harvest around the end of September, before our first hard frost.
Should You Wash Oregano After Harvesting?
Yes, always wash your herbs and produce after harvesting, especially if you are going to dry oregano afterwards. You don’t want extra protein in your spices or meal!
What to Do With Freshly Harvested Oregano
Freshly harvested oregano can be used right away in the kitchen, frozen for later, or dried for long-term storage. We dry most of our extra oregano because it’s easy to store and gives us homegrown oregano to use throughout the winter.
Plus, I’ve used oregano (dried and fresh) in multiple different herbal remedies. Things like making oregano infused oil, oregano tea, oregano poultice for sore muscles.
If you’re harvesting oregano toward the end of summer, drying it is one of the easiest ways to preserve it for winter. Here’s our complete guide on how to dry oregano from the garden.
Frequently Asked Questions About Harvesting Oregano
Yes you can! Oregano leaves straight from the plant is exactly what dried and fresh oregano is.
Constantly – all season long. We start in May and go until frost. Be sure to take small harvests in spring and continue through summer, allowing the plant time to put on fresh growth between larger harvests.
Yes, keep harvesting until the frost.
Yes if you’re harvesting for drying or using fresh, just remove the flowers and use as normal.
Related Harvesting Articles
- How To Harvest and Dry Thyme
- How to Harvest Dill (Without Damaging the Plant)
- How to Dry Dill (Using a Dehydrator)
- How to Harvest Red Clover Flower (and Dry It Properly at Home)
Keep Harvesting Oregano All Season Long
Learning how to harvest oregano is simple once you know where to make the cut. Take what you need throughout the growing season, leave plenty of healthy growth behind, and your plant can continue producing fresh oregano for months.
If you’re learning how to preserve your abundance at home, you can explore all of our hands-on advice in our Garden-Based & Preserving Guides, based on what actually works here on our homestead.
We are growing our website with more articles all the time, and we invite you to grow with us. If you have any questions about how to harvest oregano, or would like to share some of your knowledge with us please leave a comment below. Happy Gardening!
