Herbal Teas To Grow In Your Garden

The wide-ranging benefits of herbs are well known and appreciated around the globe. They not only give us a colourful and fragrant displays in the garden or container but also have a multitude of home uses including, a wealth of different flavours for cooking, in preparing herb essential oils, pot pourri, bath oils, perfume, hand and face creams to name but a few.

Here we will be concentrating on simple herbal teas, a drink where boiling water is poured over fresh or dried herbs and left to infuse, just like ordinary breakfast tea, perhaps flavoured with honey to sweeten. Teas made from herbs at a rate of 1 tsp of dried or 2-3 tsp of fresh chopped to 250ml of boiling water is traditional and makes an invigorating drink.

Benefits of herbs

Herbal teas contain no caffeine, are easy to brew and you can make a single leave tea or experiment with a mixture. A few of the recognized benefits that may be obtained can be:-

• A relaxed state of mind
• Aiding digestion
• Strengthening the immune system
• Boosting energy levels
• Relieving stress
• Help with a good night’s sleep
• Providing antioxidants

Growing herbs in containers

Common herbs are not difficult to grow in the garden as long as they can be provided with a sunny sheltered site with good drainage but the traditional way is to grow them in containers either on the patio, or even better, clustered around the kitchen door for easy access when cooking.

Choose an appropriate container, either a utilitarian one if you require a lot of space for herbs, or a statement piece to compliment your surroundings, or just one or two terracotta pots. Whatever container you choose, the method will be the same. Fill with a loam based compost and add young herb plants which are easily obtained, feed throughout the season and harvest the leaves as required.  Cut the outside leaves first and don’t cut more than a third of them to give the plant a good chance of recovering and producing more leaves to cut.

Growing herbs from seed

This is an inexpensive way of producing a lot of herbs for very little outlay, some costing under £1.50 for hundreds of seeds! They can be nurtured without much equipment but it will be easier if you have a propagator as herb seeds, on the whole, require a higher temperature to germinate. All seed packets have the correct sowing and growing instructions on the reverse of the packet but as a general rule the seeds would be sown in a pot or tray using barely moist seed compost. Cover the seeds as instructed and place in the propagator at about 22°C.  Or, you can sow and place pot in a poly bag and position on a warm windowsill. When seedlings are large enough to handle, transplant individually into 9cm pots and grow on in cooler conditions. Young plants can be planted outside when all danger of frost has passed.

5 easy herbs to grow for teas

Peppermint

A popular herb for the kitchen best known for making mint sauce but is also used in teas to give relief from nasal congestion. This is a hardy “thug” of a plant so make sure that you plant it in a container or it will spread to your entire garden.

Common Thyme

A small, pretty, spreading plant that looks so good cascading over the edge of a container and commonly used in cooking. The tea is good for relieving sore throats.

Lemon Balm

A beautiful plant with spikes of tiny scented yellow flowers. The leaves make a refreshing lemony drink especially sweetened with honey – said to reduce the symptoms of colds.

Chamomile

A plant with very feathery foliage with tiny daisy like flowers. The tea is said to have all kinds of beneficial properties including being a stress reliever and encouraging a relaxing night’s sleep.

Sage

Sage and onion stuffing – can’t be beaten but the plant itself with its textured leaves and attractive bluish-purple flowers makes a striking addition to the flower garden. As a tea, it is used to aid digestion.

These herbs are very easy to grow and cultivate and should make an excellent foundation for your herb garden. They are undemanding to maintain and reward you by being so versatile.

Visit us at Birstall and view our fantastic range of products

Published October 15th, 2014 by Jordan. Article ref 3245

Tags: gardening, growing, herbal tea, herbs

« Autumn has arrived … get your boots on! | How to attract winter birds to the garden »