Garden grown catnip

Are the flowers of catnip plant ok to give, fresh not dried, to cats?

yes. Some don't care about catnip, and some don't care if it is fresh and only like the dried ones.

Some, however, will roll around in it and distribute the pieces everywhere. So if you are a neat freak, the answer is probably "yes, but keep a broom handy".

Fine When the plant starts to wilt at the end of the summer / fall, save the flowers and dry them beacause they contain seeds. You can use those seeds next year to grow more plants

if you want it to grow tall=cut the flowers off=it will keep growing. Don't let it flower-as then it goes to seed and its the end of the road for it. chop it a good 3-4 inches and it will grow taller. 

yes you can give them the flowers. my cats all love both cat mint-which grows tall and cat nip which is shorter and the stems are thinner. cat mint is more shrub type stems-they like it when its young but once it goes to flower they don't care for it as much.

I let mine go to blossom before harvesting - it is stronger then. My cats LOVE the blooms better than the leaves. I leave some so it will self sow, but remember it is perennial so it will continue to come back year after year if taken care of.

Yep that's the best part .

Thanks everyone. Hopefully they will like the flowers as much as they like the leaves.

My cats seem to like it more when it goes all dry and brown after flowering. They eat and tear up the fresh leaves too though. Those poor plants get a hammering from our cats, but keep reappearing year after year. Very hardy!

I'm growing it this year also.  I cut back the stalks as I see flower buds.  Eventually I'll let it all flower as the season gets cooler.

The kitties really like it A LOT - buds and leaves.  Unfortunately, it made Casper throw up one time so I'm being somewhat cautious about giving to him fresh right now.

Cocoa on the other hand, doesn't tend to eat it, she just rolls around in it.

I'm going to make some small toys with it once it's all dried out end of season.

Xena prefers fresh flower tops. I grasp the flower in my fingers and gently pull up stripping it off the stem and then lightly roll in my fingertips to form a loose ball and serve. I harvest when it flowers. Pulling up the volunteers and cutting back the plants I wish to keep. Just posted a video a couple days ago under pictures and videos.

Recently got around to processing this year's nip. After hanging in the garage for 60 plus days, I stripped the stems over a big tub. Strips easy when dry. I have 2 methods to complete the drying as humidity around here slows the process. 1: allow the sunshine to finish in as little as an hour or, 2: place in paper bag with one loose fold up top for a few days, then put in ziplocks or vacuum pack. Make sure your kitty tests the product during all phases of processing. Xena eats the dry flower tops too.

Nice crop! Looks like Xena will have a good stash for a while.

I always pinch the flowers off & then bring in a couple strands for the kitties. They like the fresh better than the dried. Makes good tea too!

Found a funny cartoon.