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GLT's Grow: Plant, Brew, Sip

Pandatea Art
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Flickr via Creative Commons

You've grown vegetables, fruits, and flowers, so now how about a nice cup of tea?  Patrick Murphy, host of GLT's Grow, has advice for Kevin in Bloomington about the right plants for tea leaves.

*Murph has some good news and some bad news when it comes to growing tea:  It's tough to grow tea plants, especially in Zone 5, but if you succeed, you'll savor every cup.

*Tea plants love consistency, which you can't count on in Zone 5.

*You can grow a tea plant in a pot and move it indoors come winter, so it will grow like a house plant.  It will have less production in he winter, though.

*Try an indoor bonsai plant; their tiny leaves can be used for tea. The leaves grow quickly, too.

*Drying the leaves to use for tea is tricky because before the leaves dry, mold can possibly set in.  

*Raising from seed is possible, but you'll have a long wait before the plant is big enough to pluck leaves off of it.

Reporter, content producer and former All Things Considered host, Laura Kennedy is a native of the Midwest who occasionally affects an English accent just for the heck of it. Related to two U.S. presidents, Kennedy appalled her family by going into show business.