Last time we talked about easy steps to growing your own aloe plants. This week we will show you how to harvest the aloe for gel.  Of course, just having an aloe plant sitting around can be pleasing. But there are many ways an aloe plant can be used also.

In some cultures, the aloe is eaten. We have not tried that and really do not intend to.

You can even buy aloe juice to drink for internal issues.

Aloe has medical properties and beauty product uses. So many things in medical and beauty products use aloe as a base. Aloe is great for moisturizing skin. Aloe gel is used in hand sanitizer gel, medical ointments, many beauty products, sunscreen, hair products, and more. Many cultures use aloe as a natural burn ointment.

Step One: The Plant

You will need an adult aloe plant or plants to harvest your aloe gel to use as a product base. How many plants you will need, depends on what you are planning to do with it. How much aloe gel are you needing to get? Getting gel from the aloe plant is a pretty simple process. There are two ways to go about it as we said before, the total harvest or the part harvest.

Step Two Harvest:

Total harvest:

For the total harvest, it is as it sounds. You harvest the whole aloe plant. You pull off all the aloe plants’ limbs. You split the aloe limb open and scrape out the gel. And no, we have not done it but we know how to if we need to in the future.

As far as we know, there is not much you can do with the leftovers but put them into the mulch. You can use the skin as a natural bandage if you have a burn or scrape but it will not last more than a few hours before it shrivels up.

You can leave the aloe plant, or what is left of it, in the pot and see if it will recover from the shock. Sometimes the plant can re-grow but it takes time to recover from such a damaging event.

Partial harvest:

For the partial harvest, you pick the larger and more solid limbs from your aloe plant. Pick the ones closest to the base of the plant. Cut as close to the base of each limb as possible. Pick only a few limbs from each plant. In our research, we saw where some people pull up to half the limbs from a plant but again this can shock the plant. If your intention is to harvest but not damage the adult aloe plant, you will want to be careful how many limbs you take off at one time.

Step Three: The raw gel

The process is the same after this.

When you cut your limbs, hang them for a bit cut side down to drain. Aloe contains a yellow goo called aloin. Aloin will cause serious stomach issues if you eat it, so do not mess with this. Just let the Aloin drain and rinse away.

You split the limbs open and scrape out the gel.

Step four: Cleaning the gel

You then strain the gel to get the solids out and keep the clean gel. It seems to work faster if you put the gel into a cheesecloth bag and squeeze. Or you can grind the gel in a strainer. Whatever way you go at it, you want to get as much gel as possible out of the aloe chunks. You do not want to add any kind of liquid that will just dilute the gel.

If you want to keep all the gel, you can put it into a blender. This will liquify any chunks you have in your gel.

Depending on the size of the parent plant, 3 or 4 leaves should give you about ½ a cup of clean gel.

You can use it immediately or store it container in the fridge.

As with most DIY recipes, homemade aloe gel will not have the same color, form, and consistency that processed aloe gel has. But that is the point of making things for yourself, they are not like the bought, and processed stuff you get at the store.

Step Five: Use

Now that you have your clean aloe gel you can use it as a base to make whatever you have plans to. Getting the aloe gel is step one in making your DIY recipes. From here you can make hand sanitizer, hair gel, hair spray, hair conditioner, lotions, creams, lip balms, ointments and so much more. There are all kinds of recipes that call for aloe gel. Next, talk we will give you some of our most often used and favorite DIY recipes for aloe gel.

We admit that we are a bit squeamish and have not yet done large-scale harvesting of our aloe plants. Yes, we know it is a plant and that is its purpose but the thought of killing the whole plant is uncomfortable. We have done limited harvest when we needed a bit of aloe gel for one of our recipes. But so far if the recipe calls for a large amount of aloe gel, we use aloe gel that we have bought.

We have taken a limb or two when needed and used it for direct application or a burn or scrape. If you have an aloe limb that has been broken off by mistake, you can wrap it and put it in the freezer. The aloe limb stores well like this and can be taken out of the freezer and used when needed. The frozen aloe limb gives the added relief of cold as well as the gel application.

As we have said many times, you do not have to go all the way at all times. This is the same idea as growing and using aloe plants. You may not have the space to grow your own aloe, that is ok. If you are not willing to harvest your aloe plant, that is still ok.

You can still make your DIY recipes with store-bought aloe gel. Be sure you get the plain gel that has no additives in it. Everything you do or add to your life is a step in the direction of self-sufficiency. The goal is to be able, to know how to even if you do not want to have the means to at this time.

Knowledge is never wasted, it is just kept on the shelf until it is needed.

We hope this talk has been enjoyable and has given you some new ideas. Please try an aloe plant, you will love the plant whether you do anything with it or not.

Thank you for visiting and please come again for another edition of Out Standing in the Field.