I have six beautiful lemon balm plants with more than enough leaves for me to make tea for my family. I was wondering if someone can tell me how I can dry the leaves? I know of course that I would just cut them off but how to dry them and store them for later use. Also, I am going to divide my lemon grass leaves this week. Can the leaves be dried also?
Thanks,
Chuck
Lemon Balm
The best way to use Lemon Balm is fresh picked as a tea or tincture.
The dried herb does not retain the strong lemon flavor or the medicinal properties found in it. Freezing fresh tea or ground fresh herb might work more successfully then dry storage.
The recommendation for Lemon grass is the same... use fresh or harvest and freeze to use later.
You can probably do with it what I do with mint -- I put sprigs into ice cube trays, fill with water, and freeze, then pop the cubes into a plastic bag to use when I need them. They're beautiful and very tasty in iced tea; I haven't tried using them for anything else but I would think you could.
Thanks, I hadn't thought about this. My wife does this for several Asian additives (kamungay, for instance) and it works well for her. I will get busy today.
Thanks again,
Chuck
I like to put a handful of lemon balm leaves into salad - just the tender tip leaves. It gives a salad a subtle fresh lemon flavor.
-Beth
I don't have freezer space, so I grow both lemongrass and lemon balm, in pots in my window. It's always fresh that way. I still prefer the taste of lemon verbena over both of them, though, and it's great in potpourries and herb pillows and bath mixes, too.
Oops.....this was a post one lemon balm, wasn't it? My bad:)
cyra
But you know, Lemon *anything* is wonderful!
Dear cyra,
The only reason that we planted lemon balm instead of lemon verbena originally is because when we were planting our herbs a couple of years back, lemon balm was more readily available. I have never had lemon verbena. I think I will make that a priority next time I go to the nursery.
Take care,
Thanks,
Chuck
Dear Beth,
The lemon balm in your salad sounds delicious!! Our lemon balm just went to seed and I chopped off all of the tops. We are now waiting for the new leaves to come up (and waiting and waiting and waiting...LOL).
Thanks for sharing,
Chuck
CBernard; you're right about availability of herbs; (I had lemon balm and lemon grass, and lemon basil and mint, etc., all before I had Lemon Verbena). And medicinally, lemon balm has properties that Lemon Verbena doesn't, (antiviral properties) . I had a hard time finding lemon verbena when I wanted it, (maybe because it's reproduced from cuttings instead of seed, I don't know). I finally found mine in Canada, and bought three to hedge my bets:). Now I find it all over the place.
Went into sticker-shock this morning, though, found a Hoodia plantlet priced at $130....(no kidding).
I'd have to be desperate to pay that for a plant, but there are some plants that are so rare, or unusual, in one way or another, that they can command those prices.
Me, I'd rather just come here and get the scoop on what's available and where, or simply wait until prices are reasonable, on plants I'd like. Or go to the Trading page.
Cyra
That Hoodia thing is because of marketing for what ~ a diet fad? That is just plant crazy!
That's pretty much what I thought, too, Podster, but you're probably politer than I am in how you phrased it. Maybe the fellow offering those plants wen't to Africa personally to collect them, and is selling them to cover the costs of his airfare and stay there? I don't know. Maybe they're actually reasonable in price, because of something that makes them terribly hard to reproduce?
Like they only bloom once every 50 years or so and won't set seed unless they're pollinated by endangered hybrid Venusian Pygmy monkey-bats?
(Just kidding). It's probably useless to speculate on this, but I have to admit that I haven't seen a lot of hoodia's offered for sale around here. Haven't checked my Sacred Succulents catalogue, yet, either. Will look around.
Laterz,
Cyra
Same thing with "Peruvian golden berry" though to a different degree. Marketed as botanical magic -- it's the same thing as the cape gooseberry from what I've read! Hmmm. They grow well down here, by the way.
I had lemon balm in the ground and in a pot (hedging my bets) and the one in the ground is this huge and beautiful mound of lemony green gorgeousity. In the pot... not much at all. So I stuck the potted on in the ground and now I have TWO huge and beautifuly mounds of lemony green gorgeousity. Maybe its just my sloppy watering, but I don't think so.