one thing I like to grow in the garden
is catnip not because I use it for
anything but I think you can use it for
teas and things but I use it for my cats
they love it and I planted two plants
this year both from little small like
three dollar plants that I bought the
nursery and they've gotten huge this
year they've done really really well so
today I'm gonna show you how to dry it
and you can keep it for your cats you
can use it for catnip mice and craps
things that you might like to use to
sell and make money as a matter of fact
- so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go
along here and I'm gonna find some of
these nice leaves
that are pretty fresh these are newer
leaves I can tell and they're gonna have
the stems on them but I'm just gonna go
ahead and I'm gonna go pick a lot of
this and fill up my bucket you can do as
much as you want and we are gonna take
it in and dehydrate it
so we're ready to wash our catnip and
just want to kind of shake it off I've
got a few pine needles in there there's
pine trees buy it and I'm gonna put it
in a bowl full of cold water I like to
swish it around really really well
then you're gonna shake it off and I'm
gonna put it into my strainer to get the
rest of the water out so we're gonna
rinse it well strain it and then we're
gonna blot it dry with some paper towels
and then we're gonna take it over to the
dehydrator
here is the dehydrator that we use and
this works really well it's just a
plastic one I think you can pick it up
at Walmart
or any store like that and this works
great for us we do vegetables and herbs
and do some fruits I think my husband is
made beef jerky and we've had it for
several years and we use it quite a bit
so it's held up well for us and it comes
with four racks so what I'm gonna do you
can probably peel each one of your
leaves off if you want now I like to
just dry it whole and then the leaves
peel right off when it's done you'll see
that and you're gonna spread this out so
it's not overlapping but that you have
an evenly spread around the trays
and my dehydrator comes with four trays
so you can fill that up or use however
many you need you don't want it to be
touching or overlapping so we're gonna
spread it out really well on here and
get good coverage and then when we're
done with that put the lid on turn it on
and it has a setting for herbs which
for herbs in this is 95 degrees so I
will set it on 95 degrees and I'm gonna
let it run and we'll see how long until
it's super crispy and crunchy and I
would guess with the catnip it's only
gonna be a few hours that it will do
that so load up your dehydrator and turn
it on
there's my cat enjoying a little the
catnip that I dropped on the floor for
him
the catnip has been dehydrating for
about 24 hours maybe 18 24 hours and
it's very crunchy now so it is ready to
go once you know it's extremely crunchy
it's not soggy at all or kind of
bendy you know it's ready to go and what
I like to do with it is I just get a
bowl and I will just peel those stems
right off they pop right off the stem
I'm sorry the leaves off the stem and
put them in a separate Bowl and then
you're all ready to smash it up to
however small you want it to be and
store it I like to store it in mason
jars with just lids they're not sealed
but I put the lid on there and it'll
store and keep I put it down in the dark
basement shelf and it's good to go for a
long time so I hope you try dehydrating
your catnip or any of your other herbs
at home it's so easy then you can use
them all year round thanks for watching