Lemon balm has a delicious sweet lemon flavour.

Tisanes or herb teas have been in vogue in southern Europe since Roman times. The fictional detective Hercule Poirot often needed  a tisane after a particularly trying day. Today herb teas are increasing in popularity with the recognition of the harmful effects of too much coffee and ordinary tea. But aren’t herb teas expensive and don’t they taste awful? Not true! Especially if you grow your own, and can experiment with different combinations. Fresh or freshly dried leaves and flowers taste much better than the often musty plant material of questionable content and origin found in shops. Recent research by New York City high school students using simple DNA techniques, found that several herbal teas contain ingredients not listed on the pack. So if you grow and use your own, at least you can be certain about what you are drinking.

Many herbs can be made into tea but some have unpleasant flavours and others have potent medicinal properties which can be harmful if used in the wrong way.  The herbs described below are safe to drink but, as with all food and beverage, moderation is the key — don’t drink any one herb too often or in too much abundance.

The Herbs

Lemon grass need a well-drained position and plenty of water in hot weather.

Lemon verbena leaves dry well and keep their flavour for many years.

Lemon flavoured teas are probably the most popular and can be drunk hot or cold. Of the three most popular herbs — lemon balm, lemon verbena and lemon grass; lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) is the easiest to grow. Start it from seed or rooted pieces detached from a clump and it will thrive in any sunny, well-drained position. Often it will self sow around the garden ensuring an abundant supply, pick the leaves as needed and use fresh. Cut back the clump in autumn once the flowers are finished. Lemon verbena (Aloysia triphylla) grows as a small tree which is deciduous in cold climates. It is most easily grown from tip cuttings taken in late spring and the whole plant needs to be cut back by two thirds in early spring. Lemon grass (Cymbopogon citratus) is a native of more tropical regions. It needs plenty of moisture in summer and very good drainage in winter. It won’t tolerate heavy frosts but will survive moderately cold winters as long as it is not too wet.
Delicious fragrant teas can also be made from all the mints, perhaps the most refreshing being peppermint (Mentha x piperita). Mints are best grown in big tubs where they can’t take over the garden. A good potting mix, a shady corner and a hard prune after flowering are all they need. Peppermint tea drunk at night increases alertness but doesn’t stop you from going to sleep in the way coffee often will.

Chamomile tea eases stress and tension

Annual chamomile flowers (Matricaria recutita) made into a tea will be remembered by many readers who were given it as children when they had toothache, headache or stomach pains. It is a gentle relaxant and sedative but is unfortunately unpalatable to some people. The flavour improves with familiarity, but you can try mixing it with lemon balm which has similar properties, and a little honey, to mask the flavour. Chamomile is grown from seed and the flowers harvested as soon as they appear. The flowers can be used fresh or dried.

Dill (Anethum graveolens) and fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) make interesting anise flavoured teas. Dill is grown from seed planted in spring in any sheltered sunny corner, while fennel is a noxious weed in many regions so it should be collected from the wild. If this is not possible try planting the bronze form which is more decorative and not so invasive. The seed and leaves of both these plants are used to make a tea that is particulary good for indigestion and flatulence and helps to sweeten the breath.

Bronze fennel is less weedy than green fennel and the bronze leaves look great with orange flowers in the garden.

Dill with silverbeet

Several of the classic mediterranean herbs also make tasty and healthy teas. These include rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) , sage (Salvia officinalis) and thyme (Thymus vulgaris). All these plants need sun and well drained soil. Thyme in particular does not like to be cold and wet in winter.
Drying the Herbs

Herbs drying, in a dry airy position out of direct sunlight.

I much prefer herbs for tea if they are fresh, but some are not available all year round so need to be dried. To dry herbs harvest them early in the morning just after the dew has dried from the leaves and hang in bunches in a cool airy place out of direct light. Flowers and small leaves are best dried spread on paper in a similar position, while seed drys well in paper bags. Once dry, seal the plant material into jars or plastic bags, label clearly with the name of the plant and date of harvest and store out of direct light. Check a couple of days later to ensure there is no condensation inside the jar or bag. If there is,  then the herb is not completely dry. Remove it and leave out to dry for a few more days. Don’t keep dried herbs for more than twelve months as after this the flavour begins to deteriorate.

Fresh lemon balm for this tisane

Making the Tea
To make herb tea, first warm the pot,  then add the fresh or dried leaves, pour boiling water over the top and leave to stand for up to five minutes. The longer the tea is left to brew the stronger the flavour will be. The tea can also be made in a cup and poured through a strainer, or a stainless steel infuser can be used. Milk is never added to herb teas.

Refer to the list for the medicinal properties of each herb and have fun experimenting with the different flavours.

Dyer’s chamomile flowers

I’ve been weeding and cleaning up parts of my garden, ready for some planting and for new spring growth. Now is also a good time (maybe almost too late) to divide perennials. One I love and have been digging and dividing, is dyer’s chamomile. It’s botanical name was Anthemis tinctoria but is now Cota tinctoria. I do understand the need to update botanical names in line with new research, but it does make it really hard for gardeners and garden writers to keep up! This perennial spreading shrub grows as evergreen mounds of soft-green ferny leaves. Plants grow to about 50cm when in flower and will spread to cover more than a metre in every direction. I am reminded how much pleasure I get in the early morning in spring and summer,  when the beautiful butter yellow flowers of dyer’s chamomile  glow in my garden.  Newly planted clumps may  need  some water on a summer’s day to help them survive the heat of the day but they are otherwise easy to grow.

The yellow flowers occur from spring to autumn and in the days, many years ago, when I used to spin and dye my own wool, I prized the soft orange colour produced by the flowers when combined with an alum or chrome mordant, and the greenish-brown with an iron mordant.  The leaves can be rubbed onto a bite to relieve pain and swelling but the flowers are not used to make tea in the same way as the true chamomiles Matricaria chamomilla and Chamaemelum nobile.  As well as division, dyer’s chamomile is also easily grown from cuttings taken is spring or autumn. It does best in a sunny position with a well-drained soil. Plants will not survive constantly wet soils or heavy frost. In sub-tropical regions grow in a pot or very well-drained bed in a position where it is sheltered from heavy summer rain. There are several cultivars with flowers of different shades of yellow, including ‘E. C. Buxton’ with pale lemon yellow flowers and ‘Alba’ with white flowers

Perennial chamomile adds calcium and ‘sweetens’ the compost.

Just as the success of a meal depends on the quality of the ingredients, so too does the success of a compost heap. If you add only kitchen scraps you’re likely to end up with a slimy, black mess and if it’s all leaves and twigs then the chances are that is what will still be there months later. The fine detail of a compost recipe varies depending on the expert you are consulting, but all compost systems require free drainage, adequate moisture and a mixture of strawy, open material and green plant tissue. The purpose of composting is to break down garden and kitchen ‘waste’ into humus that can then be added to the garden to supply nutrients in a form that can be readily used by plants.

Compost can just ‘happen’. This one has kitchen scraps, straw and green waste.

Ingredients

Basic compost ingredients are kitchen scraps, manure (chook, cow, horse), soil, shredded paper, straw and green waste from the garden. This green waste can be made up of grass cuttings, leaves, weeds and leafy prunings. Sticks and branches are also fine as long as they are cut or mulched into small pieces.  These ingredients should added in layers in much the same way as you would make a moussaka, but instead of eggplant, meat and cheese sauce your layers would consist of kitchen scraps, manure, garden waste and straw or shredded paper. If you are like me and not organized enough to have all these ingredients ready at the same time, then you can just add them as they are available. In the words of the old Zen master, ‘compost happens’. It may take longer but it will get there in the end.

Healthy compost is full of worms

Don’t add diseased plants, or weeds such as couch, oxalis and onion weed, but conversely there are some plants, including some weeds, that will actually add specific nutrients and even help the compost to break down more quickly.

The herbs

My compost recipe requires regular additions of annual and perennial chamomile (Matricaria recutita and Chamaemelum nobile), comfrey (Russian comfrey, S. x uplandicum Bocking 14 is the best cultivar to use), dandelion (Taraxacum species), nettles (Urtica dioica), tansy (Tanacetum vulgare), valerian (Valeriana officinalis) and yarrow (Achillea millefolium).

Regular handfuls of chamomile, dandelion and yarrow leaves and flowers will all speed up decomposition of the compost with yarrow being the most effective. Yarrow also adds copper, nitrates, phosphates and potash while chamomile adds calcium and ‘sweetens’ the mixture. Dandelions contribute copper, iron and potash. Nettles are problem weeds but they actually improve the quality of the soil they are growing in and when added to the compost they contribute iron and nitrogen. Tansy adds potassium, which is very important for plant growth while valerian increases the phosphorous content so essential for good flowers and fruits. Probably the most useful compost plant is comfrey. The leaves are rich in potassium, nitrogen, calcium and phosphates. I keep a clump growing next to the compost and add a handful of leaves whenever I throw in kitchen scraps.

Dandelion leaves and flowers help to speed up decomposition.

Yarrow adds copper, nitrates, phosphate and potash to the compost.

We all know that adding herbs to food increases the flavour and enjoyment of the food. Adding herbs to compost doesn’t quite make it good enough to eat, but it speeds up and improves the composting process. It also ensures that the compost you add to your garden has a good balance of nutrients thus promoting the health and fertility of the soil, so essential for healthy plants.