Posted on 02/26/2022 6:25:45 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
Growing your own herbs to make tea or herbal infusions is a fun way to customize your daily cup. Discover the best tea plants to grow and how to use them to make your daily drink.
Chamomile
Lemon Balm
Lemon Verbena
Peppermint
Thyme
Drinking tea can be therapeutic and relaxing. Making a cup of tea can be mediative, too — from selecting your mug from the cupboard, choosing your tea while waiting for the water to boil, and then pouring over and allowing time for the tea to steep. For some, it's the best way to begin the morning.
Take a quick browse through the grocery store tea aisle, and you'll find an overflowing assortment of brands and flavors of dried tea to choose from, making it easy to have an ample collection on hand. But did you know growing your own herbs to make your own tea or infusion is easy?
The wonderful thing about growing herbs to make infusions is they don't require a lot of garden space or supplies. You can sow seeds or seedlings directly into the ground — space permitting — or use pots. In fact, herbs from the mint family, including lemon balm, are better off in containers since they love to spread out and will easily dominate in the garden. Other herbs can be grown together, if you wish. Just give each plant its needed space to grow and thrive.
NOTE: These herbs can become invasive! Plant THIS selection in pots, or in buried pots in the ground to prevent that.
https://www.allrecipes.com/article/how-to-grow-tea/
bkmk
Each herbal tea plant has different needs. Although you can grow your herbal tea garden in the ground or in containers, plants with similar care needs should grow together. See BH&G's Plant Encyclopedia for information on each plant's habits to ensure the best results.
Need some help getting started? Here's your guide! Use this herbal tea garden plan as your map to a delicious cup of tea.
1 Peppermint (18" X 14" pot)
2 Spearmint (18" X 14" pot)
3 Lemon Balm (18" X 14" pot)
A | 3 Lemon Thyme
B | 3 English Thyme
C | 4 Parsley
D | 1 Lemon Verbena
E | 6-9 Dill
F | 6-7 Sweet Basil
G | 5 Lavender
H | 3-4 Lemon Basil
I | 1-2 Borage
J | 6-8 German Chamomile
K | 3-4 French Thyme
L | 2 Mother of Thyme
https://www.bhg.com/gardening/vegetable/herbs/make-own-herbal-tea/
To increase the harvest this year, I’m expanding the garden with grow bags and other containers on a patio. The problem is figuring out what size containers to use.
At the least, I’ll be growing a small variety of cabbage (Golden Acre) and iceberg lettuce. Have any of you grown cabbage or lettuce in containers? What size do you recommend? I did the google machine and it brings up charts with conflicting information. Looking for information based on actual experience.
Zone 6 in Pennsylvania if that matters.
Pollard's F/R profile page has been the location of his Prepper links and Data Base.
The Gardening Resources area has been moved and is now located on that that page!
Click on the picture below to visit and have a look around!
Got 1 1/2” of frozen sleet on the ground. Looks like snow but you don’t leave footprints when you walk on it. In fact, I’ve been in and out the driveway a few times and left no tire tracks with a 6,000 lb truck.
Will be hitting the high 50s here in a couple of days. Clay will be like Jello then.
Will be ordering seed starting supplies in the next couple of days. Still price shopping and it looks like most stuff will come from ebay, some of it used.
Sick of the cold weather. Sick of messing with firewood. Sick of sitting indoors.
Good Morning!
I grow herbs too! They are my favorite. :-)
Lettuce will pretty much grow in any well-drained container. It has a shallow root system, so think WIDE over DEEP for lettuces. Also, Iceburg is boring, cheap and abundant. Venture out with more colorful leaf lettuces and other salad greens. (Spinach, Arugula, etc.)
Unless you’re growing the smaller cabbages, ONE cabbage is going to need a 5-gallon pot.
Cabbage is so cheap to buy year-round, and takes up a lot of garden space so I generally grow two or three ‘fancy ones’ in with my flowers for show. (Of course I eat it, too!)
I don’t think you’ll get much bang for your buck growing cabbage in containers. I’d re-think that.
My suggestion for veggies in containers would be: Tomatoes, hot & sweet peppers, cucumbers (with a large tomato cage in there to climb), radishes and eggplant. I’d use 5 gallon pots for those choices. ONE tomato plant and two peppers for every 5-gallon container. Green Beans grow well in containers, too. Probably 4 plants in a 5-gallon bucket.
If you’re using your pots for succession planting, all the better! Lettuce and radishes, spinach, arugula in the spring. You can re-plant all of that again in the fall for more. Tomatoes and peppers will take the whole season to grow, but when your cukes poop out, you can replant that pot (with some freshened up soil) with maybe sugar snap peas (short ones like ‘Sugar Ann’) or more radishes and/or salad greens.
Herbs are VERY happy in pots, so basil, rosemary, thyme, fennel, dill, etc. whichever are your favorites to cook with.
Also, when you’re growing in pots, you’ll need to fertilize all the time. Plan on watering twice a day (morning and early evening) in the heat of summer. I would do two things for that. Use a time-release granular fertilizer in with your potting soil, top dress your pots with compost and every time you water, add a small scoop of Miracle Grow (or whatever water-soluable fertilizer you like) to your watering can.
I know growing in pots seems like extra work, but it’s worth it to do it right for great success.
Also - make sure those pots have good drainage! If you’re using 5 gallon buckets, drill holes about 2” up from the bottom of the pot, along the sides. If your pots already have drainage, elevate them on bricks so they can drain properly from the bottom...and your patio will be less likely to get stained from sitting water.
Thanks, Pete!
And YOU will get Spring Weather before I do! :)
If only I could spend more time on firewood.
Loud hooting at 2 a.m. from back yard woods. Assume it’s an owl. Probably. Powerful vocal cords. Do coyotes ever sound like that?
Enjoy the final frozen days. You’ll miss them when they’re gone
We got another round of ice and snow in Central Missouri this past week. Wasn’t as bad as the last round, and warmer temps are predicted for next week, so we have another frozen-to-mud transition to look forward to.
Lumberyard called yesterday. My poly panels have arrived. If I can escape the data center in time, and if the jack on my trailer isn’t frozen to the ground, I’ll pick those up later today. I still need to buy the framing lumber, but I can’t start the project while the ground is frozen, so no super rush there.
Think I’ll get my seed order into Jung’s today too. Considering the current geopolitical situation, buying some extra might not be a bad idea right now.
You should see my collection of Mulled Cider spices, lol. I keep experimenting with different ones. There is probably close to 2 dozen. Everything from juniper berries to Cardamom go in the mix. I keep it simple, a microwaved cup of apple cider and dunking bag made from a cofefe filter for the spices. I use dental floss to make a handle for the bag.
A simple lunch meal I’ve been enjoying is baby portabella mushrooms cut in half, mildly cooked until the juice just starts coming out if them and green onions. I sprinkle Sea Salt over the green onions and a little over the mushrooms. The Sea Salt greatly enhances the flavor of the onions.
“Considering the current geopolitical situation, buying some extra might not be a bad idea right now.”
Yep. :(
I LOVE mushrooms. They’re always on my weekly grocery list. :)
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