we drink a LOT of tea, and it's one of the products we buy that often travels vast distances before it reaches our cup. we did a little research on what tea needs to grow, and decided that we have the exact same climate here as they do in darjeeling. well, maybe that's a little bit of wishful thinking, but we do have a good bit of elevation...
back in february, we planted 6 little tea plants (camillia sinensis) that we ordered from camillia forest nursery in north carolina. we planted them in a spot where they'll be right outside the kitchen of the cabin we're about to build, so they should get pretty constant moisture from graywater runoff from the sink. for the past few months we've kept them covered with blankets on cold nights, though when they get a little bigger, they should be able to tolerate the winter cold and frost. right now they are only about 6 inches tall - in a few years, they could reach as high as 15 feet. so far, they seem to be doing great!
What a great idea...I'll be interested to know if it does grow for you.
ReplyDeleteI drink a lot of peppermint tea and oregon is a major peppermint producer so I've been lazy about growing our own plants.
how are the tea plants doing now?
ReplyDeletethey really haven't grown much as yet. we had an extraordinarily cold winter here, and, in addition to a gopher problem, the poor little plants have been struggling to hold their ground! but we've now got them better protected, and hope that this spring we'll see some growth.
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