Homegrown Herbal Tea

[Pulsegleaner]

Yes, I do think about adding one or two Yuzu trees as they can be planted outside. Yuzu juice can make wonderful Ponzu sauce.

Yes, provided you can GET any! As time has gone by, I have noticed that the Yuzus I have been able to purchase have had more and more seeds, and less and less juice*. That's actually WHY I plant EVERY Yuzu pip I get (and why I haven't thinned out the pot of seedlings I have which must have 50-60 little trees in it). With low seed, high juice yuzus becoming scarcer and scarcer, I'm terrified that, if I thin them, one of the ones I pull up and discard could be the one I was looking for.
Besides the Yuzus, I have one Sudachi (bought as a treelet) twenty or so Shikuwasas (a kind of lime like citrus native to Okinawa) and five or six of some kind of tangelo whose name I can't remember (began with an "M" which TASTES like a Sumo (Dekapon) but DOES have the occasional seed**

Two years ago, I planted Goji and Jujube as their fruits (especially dehydrated ones) are very widely used for culinary and making healthy drinks.

Not a big fan of the taste of either of those, so not something I'd plant. But you do you.
Though, come to think of it, I DO have a package of black goji berries somewhere in my room, that I was planning to toss in the ground one of these days.
*I DID once manage to find some very small round very low seed high juice fruits marked as "organic yuzus" one at my market. However given their size and shape, I think that those may actually have been sudachis that were mislabeled (the same way one batch of yuzus that came in at the other market were marked as kabosus). Never got a chance to grow them (when I say "low seed" I mean like one every tenth fruit, and since 95% of the fruits were already rotten when I saw them (and so unbuyable), I only wound up with one or two seeds, which dried out before I could get them in the soil.)

**If it had been a little more punctilious with my seed planting, I'd also have a few minkans (the really tiny tangerine that they use for canned mandarin orange slices). The right kind of Calamondin (at least I can get more of those next year when the season comes around). A Red Mandarin (a tangerine blood orange cross. I still HAVE the pit I found, but since it has been sitting in water for six months now, it's probably rotted. And the fact I bit it before I found it probably won't help matters), some Mango Oranges ( a weird pink pithed orange with absolutely NO acid and a slight raspberry taste. I hate them, but they are unusual, and an unknown number of Persian limes (as the modern Persian/Tahitian lime is triploid, and therefore usually sterile, I am curious what would come up when one plants the rare seed that DOES occur.)

 

[baymule]

Y’all are giving me great ideas for my herb garden! (That I will plant next year) LOL

 

[baymule]

Is the the German camomile a perennial, or is the Roman camomile the one that’s a perennial? Which one makes the best tea?

 

[Marie2020]

I just added a little mint inside my mini garden container and the flies have gone. My little herbs is starting to sprout

 

[Marie2020]

Is the the German camomile a perennial, or is the Roman camomile the one that’s a perennial? Which one makes the best tea?

That's a great question I'm looking for that answer to

 

[Marie2020]

I've just found this clip for drying and storage of mint
There's also a lovely Mint and lemon tea recipe

 

[Phaedra]

Is the the German camomile a perennial, or is the Roman camomile the one that’s a perennial? Which one makes the best tea?

I only tried German chamomiles. It's annual but always self-seeds. From the article I read, the Roman ones are perennial, with bigger but fewer flowers. It seems that they share similar herbal effects, but Roman chamomiles are milder.

I love the smell of German chamomiles; they are pretty pleasant and helpful to calm down. They can be taken as ingredients for making herbal tea and are also pretty as tabletop decorations.

 

[Phaedra]

Tea for this morning - chamomiles, rose, calamondin juice, sage, mint, and honey

I am trying the way that can make the care and harvest of chamomiles easier. Planting them in higher pots (or putting the pots at a certain height, maybe knee level) or raised beds can be quite helpful.

The harvest is also a bit tedious if we try to pick only the flowers. So I just cut a small bunch of them and put them in the water. They can stay fresh for a few days; meanwhile, we will have a flower decoration with a nice look and smell nearby.

For tea time, you can easily pick some for brewing.

 

[Phaedra]

Chamomile and mint on the left, parsley on the right - in expresso cups from IKEA

Just a small arrangement, but they look so adorable.

 

[Marie2020]

Tea for this morning - chamomiles, rose, calamondin juice, sage, mint, and honey
View attachment 49204

I am trying the way that can make the care and harvest of chamomiles easier. Planting them in higher pots (or putting the pots at a certain height, maybe knee level) or raised beds can be quite helpful.

View attachment 49203

The harvest is also a bit tedious if we try to pick only the flowers. So I just cut a small bunch of them and put them in the water. They can stay fresh for a few days; meanwhile, we will have a flower decoration with a nice look and smell nearby.

For tea time, you can easily pick some for brewing.
View attachment 49205

I love the smell of camomile, I just drift off to sleep