How To Harvest Aloe Vera

Aloe Vera is one of the most unique and useful plants around.  A simple plant to keep in your home, providing you with countless health benefits.  A breeze to harvest for your own personal use, ditch the store bought Aloe Vera and grow your own. A beautiful addition to your home decor, you can’t go wrong adding an Aloe Vera plant to your home.

I can remember being a little girl and riding my bike when a giant bumble bee stung my throat.  My Aunt brought me inside, and trimmed a piece of her Aloe Vera plant and placed it on my neck immediately reducing the pain and the swelling.  The magic of natural medicinal remedies.

I inherited an 8 year old Aloe Vera plant from a lady locally, that same Aloe Vera plant has given me countless baby starts to fill my house with, and to gift to others, a girl can only keep so many plants indoors.

When I first inherited the Aloe Vera plant I wasn’t really sure the proper way to harvest, so today I want to share with you how to harvest your Aloe Vera plant to provide your family with an endless supply of Aloe Vera for natural medicinal remedies.

Aloe Vera Plant Benefits 

• Aloe Vera contains Vitamins A and C, antioxidants, enzymes, and anti-inflammatory properties.
• A useful combatant against most skin issues, as well as an excellent remedy for acne.
• Aloe will naturally remove sun spots, and age spots when applied directly.
• An excellent remedy for burns and bee stings.
• When ingested, Aloe Vera can act as an anti-inflammatory agent that can provide relief for inflammations caused by ulcerative colitis.
• Aloe Vera has some medicinal properties, making it useful for symptomatic relief of chronic constipation or diarrhea.
• Aloe Vera helps detoxify your body.

How To Harvest Your Aloe Vera Plant

Step 1.  With clean scissors trim off a piece or many pieces of your Aloe Vera plant beginning at the bottom of the plant.

Step 2. Cut your Aloe Vera pieces into 2-3” pieces.

Step 3. Place your cut pieces in cool water for a few hours, or overnight.  You will notice when you cut your Aloe plant it oozes a yellow, sticky substance with a strange odor.  Soaking your cut pieces will draw out this sap.

Step 4.  After soaking remove your Aloe Vera pieces and begin cutting off the edges of the Aloe Vera Plant.  Then carefully slice and remove the remaining skin.  You should see a clear, Aloe Vera blob, this is the good stuff.

Step 5.  Place the Aloe Vera in the blender, food processor or finely chop up to the consistency you desire.

Step 6.  Immediately place in the fridge in a glass jar, and use as needed. I find these small little glass jars from Amazon are the perfect size for a week supply.  

Note:  Fresh Aloe Vera will remain fresh in the fridge up to a week, or you can place it in the freezer for long term storage only to remove it as needed.  A simple way to store your freezer Aloe Vera is to place it in ice cube trays upon initially freezing, making for a weeks use in each tiny frozen cube.

How is store bought Aloe Vera green?  And how does it last so long at room temperature on your shelf?

After a few harvests you will notice that your Aloe Vera Plant looks a little sad, with missing pieces from the base of the plant.  Once the wounds have healed up from harvesting, usually this takes a few days to scab over, replant your Aloe Vera deeper into the soil, covering the injuries from your harvest.  This will allow the Aloe Plant to begin producing new shoots at the top, and middle of the plant. I’m always amazed at how quickly it recovers and begins producing new shoots. 

Growing Aloe Vera indoors is a necessity where I live. Our desert summers are too hot and dry for my Aloe plants, and winters are frigid and cold, so they live indoors near a sunny window all year long.  With minimal watering requirements the Aloe Vera is the least needy of all my houseplants. 

An excellent addition to any homestead, or home for overall skin health.

Do you grow Aloe Vera?

Danielle