The aromatic plants in your garden may be taken in tea, such as soothing camomile, and many can be planted or sown now
Create your own
tea garden
Shop-bought, dried and packaged herbal tea pales beside the fresh variety culled from the garden, so perhaps it’s time to grow your own, says Anne Swithinbank
W
HILE watching my family foraging for what they call ‘garden tea’, I realised that our fenced potagerstyle kitchen plot also serves us well as a tea garden. When we first moved here and made this productive space, my late father grew crops allotment-style. Since then, it has gradually filled with fruit trees, herbs and other edible plants with crops grown in the gaps left between. So what is this ‘garden tea’ and can anyone grow it? The proper name for herbal teas fresh or dried is a tisane. What we refer to as ‘garden tea’ is the leaves and flowers from a range of plants, including what some folk would call weeds, gathered from plants growing in our garden. They are steeped in water just off the boil and drunk without milk and sugar. Regular tea is the dried green or cured black leaves of Camellia sinensis, a Chinese evergreen shrub related to the showy camellias grown for their flowers. 26 AMATEUR GARDENING 19 JUNE 2021
Using the right plants Anyone can make garden tea, but you need the confidence to identify plants and differentiate from any that might be poisonous. Most gardens will already contain several candidates for a tisane, but those new to gardening might need a knowledgeable friend or relative to help check these. Another way is to buy new seed or
In June, fresh blossom of lime (Tilia platyphyllos) makes a sweet tea
plants (preferably grown organically) so you know what you’ve got. Most grow happily in containers and won’t take up much space. While most people can correctly identify mint, lemon balm, rosemary, lavender and dandelion petals, some might be unsure of sticky weed and yarrow. Grow and make your own Despite a history of monastic gardens and herbal medicines, we seem to have lost the knack of growing and making our own tisanes, though they remain popular in continental Europe. Most of my friends offer herbal as well as regular tea, but they are rarely fresh, aromatic mint or lemon balm but dried, bagged and packeted from a cupboard. Venturing into the garden to gather tea ingredients is more time consuming, but what could be more pleasant than walking among aromatic plants, allowing your senses and appetite to select one or a mixture of herbs and wild things?
