Tea-riffic Tea Garden: A Guide to Growing Tea at Home

If you’re feeling chilly, warm up by growing everything you need for your own cup of tea. Select your favourite flavour and get to work growing these fragrant, delicious herbs.

Chamomile

Sip your cares away with a cup of piping hot chamomile tea. The chamomile plant blooms with fragrant white flowers that can be used fresh or dried to make tea. Growing your own chamomile indoors is quite easy because it’s a low-maintenance plant, but you should try to give it as much light as possible. Use well-draining soil and keep it moist, especially during the germination process. After only 10-14 days, you’ll start seeing sprouts. While the plant isn’t blooming, you can harvest some of the leaves to also use in teas and tinctures.

Lavender

Is there any better way to end a long day than getting a whiff of lavender? Growing lavender indoors is not only great for its taste and aroma, but it’s also a beautiful plant to have in your home. If you get the growing conditions right, your lavender plant can be a bounty of versatile herbaceous goodness. Lavender can be a little tricky to grow indoors as it requires plenty of sunlight; a grow light can come in handy when growing many herbs indoors. Soak the soil thoroughly and allow it to dry out between waterings, and choose a variety like English lavender, which smells lovely and is known to be the best-tasting.

Peppermint

A steaming cup of peppermint tea is a great way to clear your sinuses and energize yourself naturally. Wild mint can grow very easily in your garden, but you can also grow this delicious herb indoors. Keep the soil moist, but try not to get water on the mint leaves. Peppermint plants are prone to developing rust, so put the misting bottle away and perhaps even try to add some airflow around the plant.

Camellia Sinensis (Tea Shrub)

If you’re a true tea aficionado, you can try to grow a Camellia sinensis, also known as a tea shrub. Tea shrubs are responsible for growing the leaves that we commonly use for three of our favourite teas: oolong, black, and green tea. Growing your own tea shrub is a long-term investment. From seed, you’ll have to wait about three years until you can harvest the leaves from the plant, but if you love tea as much as I do, it’s worth the wait! You may be able to buy a plant that is already mature enough to harvest. If not, plant your tea shrub in well-draining, sandy soil along with some sphagnum moss””and since they are only hardy up to zone 7, you will need to bring this plant indoors before the weather gets chilly.

Jasmine

Jasmine plants are the winners when it comes to perfume plants. Jasmine has been prized for centuries, so why not grow this royal plant indoors and treat yourself to the best tea in the world? When planted outside, it attracts hummingbirds and butterflies. When grown inside, it attracts your friends for tea. Certain varieties of jasmine love to climb, so you may want to consider trellising your plant when it gets larger or prune it to a manageable size. Keep your jasmine consistently moist, and remember that it loves hot and humid conditions. Add jasmine flowers to your green tea, or steep them alone.

Lemon Balm

Lemon balm has incredible versatility for teas and other edible treats. If you’d like to grow it indoors, you’ll want to try to recreate its natural environment. Growing lemon balm indoors will require 5-6 hours of sunlight per day, and keep an eye out for powdery mildew and root rot. This is one herb that you don’t want to flower! Once it flowers, the taste will change and won’t be very palatable. If you spot some flowers beginning to grow, pluck them off. When harvesting your indoor herbs, make sure to never take more than 30% of the leaves for your tea.