15 Herbs I Grow for Teas! Frugal Healthy Living 🌿

Hey, I'm Rachel J, and this is Cultivator Kitchen. Today I'm going to share 15 different herbs, flowers, and roots that I grow at home for medicinal teas. The first one up is actually ginger root. I just did a video where you can check out how I grow ginger at home indoors. It's a tropical plant, so I can't grow it outside here, but I can grow it indoors, and I use both the root and ginger leaf for teas. So if you want to know more about that, check out that video. I'll link it above. The second one is I grow turmeric at home using the same method. I'm actually going to be making my turmeric ginger latte after I make this video. That's what I'm craving right now. It's been so good because it's so cold and snowy out, and this is turmeric root that I grew myself. So check out that video if you want to see how to do it as well. Next up is one of my all-time favorites. This is lemon verbena. It grows phenomenally in my garden, and I always have so much left over. I think I have three of these jars that I always share with my neighbors and friends, and this is a favorite of theirs as well. What is awesome about this is lemon verbena dries in one day. It's really quick to do. If you want, check out my herb drying video to see how to preserve this, and this one I do have to replant every year because it's a bit too cold where I live, but if you live further south than me, you can plant it once and it comes back every year, and it makes the most delicious lemony-flavored tea. And next up is lemon balm. Lemon balm actually does grow like a weed here. I planted it once two years ago. I have a whole bed for it, and it comes up every single year for me. It's awesome. It's very prolific, so I keep it in its own raised bed so it doesn't take over the whole garden. Lemon balm is amazing for helping with anxiety and nerves. It's also antibacterial. It's just a really great one to always have on hand, and I absolutely love it. It's also really mild tasting, so for me, it goes great in mixes where I want to put two or three different kinds together and make a blended tea. And next, I want to talk about an all-time classic tea. This is mint. I love mint, both fresh and dried. It's probably my favorite when you can use fresh mint leaves, which you can get growing in your garden all summer long or at the store or farmer's market, and then when the season comes to an end, I cut it all down and I dry it, and I end up with some dried mint tea. This is also a little more mild than fresh, so you can mix it in with things to give it a minty fresh flavor, and it is so, so delicious. The next herb I want to share with you is thyme. I also grow a lot of thyme, and thyme is amazing both in food for seasoning, but it's also great as a tea, and it's actually one of the main ingredients in Medical Medium's Thyroid Healing Tea. So I grow a lot of thyme in my garden and dry it and save it for the next year. Another good one along those lines is fennel. You can use the fennel leaf or fennel seeds to make really delicious anise-flavored tea, and I love the taste of fennel. It's also really good in mixes, and it gives you just a warm, cozy feeling. Next up is probably my all-time favorite. I could drink this every single day. This is raspberry leaf tea. So you guys know how much I love growing different kind of raspberries in my garden. You plant them once, they come up every year, they're super prolific. In addition to the delicious berries, you can get this super healing, nutritious tea. It's so mild and flavorful. It's like a light green tea. It doesn't have a berry taste at all, and it has so many good medicinal properties. This is one I want to drink almost every day, and because it's so mild, I can add this to blends as well and just put it in everything. Similar to raspberry leaf tea, you can also drink the leaves of blackberry bushes. So blackberry leaf tea is super delicious. I often get those from friends that have blackberry bushes, and I hope to soon add blackberry bushes to my garden. And blackberry leaf tea is one of the key ingredients in Medical Medium's liver chai recipe, and I have some of that as well, and I absolutely love it. So you can have both the berries and the delicious leaves for tea from raspberries and blackberries. And number 10 on my list is echinacea. This plant is a powerhouse. It is a herbal remedy for colds and for your immune system, and I have saved the flowers and leaves from my echinacea in my garden. You can also dig up the roots, and the roots are even more powerful as an herbal medicinal tea, but I like to leave the roots in the ground so I can get more echinacea the next year. So once my patch of flowers is big enough, then maybe I'll take up some roots. But for now, I just dry the flowers and the leaves, and I make a delicious healing tea. This is great to help you out in these colder months when you're trying to boost your immune system. And of course, it is absolutely beautiful to look at all summer long with the tall cone flowers and their pretty colors. And the next tea I want to mention is one that grows absolutely wild. You don't even have to plant it, and you'll probably find it where you live if you live in North America, and that is nettles. So nettles are delicious as cooked greens, and you can also dry them and save nettle leaf tea. And it is so good. It is one of the most healing teas. I like to add that one to blends. It's a little bit strong, so I just put a little bit in, and I love to use nettles as well. The next tea that I love to grow, and actually this is another one that I forage and I don't have to plant, is red clover. Red clover is an amazing medicinal tea that I can actually find wild at my family's farm in Kentucky and harvest that in the fields. And if you guys watched one of my previous vacation videos in Kentucky, you can see me doing that and making my morning tea out of it. It is so delicious, and I love the way it looks, the bright pink petals of the red clover, and they're really easy to find if you have big open fields anywhere. And this is a tea that medical medium talks about a lot because it has so many benefits. So I hope that's one that you'll consider growing or foraging, and if not, you can always buy some as well. And the next tea I want to talk about is a classic. I don't have any more to show you because I literally drank it all. It's chamomile. I don't think I can grow enough chamomile or get enough chamomile. Actually where I live, it doesn't grow super well because it's a little cold, so I only get a small batch, but I can get loose chamomile flowers at the bulk section of my co-op that I like to go to. So I love to get that zero waste and make my own chamomile tea with the flowers. And of course, it's just super beautiful to see the flowers and the petals in your loose leaf tea jar as you're making it. It's just gorgeous. And chamomile is super calming. It's my go-to if I'm out and about or traveling, everyone else is having coffee, generally most places will have chamomile. I just love it. It's so good. The next tea that I want to talk about is lavender. And I've already used up all my lavender for this year. I actually gave a lot away to friends and that meant I had a really small harvest this year. But you can use both the leaves and the flowers of lavender to make amazing tea blends. And I don't currently harvest roses, I guess that's a bonus tea you can try. But I have had blends that are rose petals and lavender and it just is so floral and delicious and it really gives you that self-care vibe. So if you have some lavender or roses you're growing, maybe consider making a blend with those too. And last but definitely not least, probably besides raspberry leaf, my favorite on here is dandelion. Dandelions are amazing. You don't have to plant them or grow them because they're just going to come up in your yard. And for me, I say the more the merrier because dandelions are so delicious. I love the flowers and stems and leaves in salad. The roots you can brew up and it will make a nice strong tea that's super detoxifying, almost like a coffee flavor. And you can even roast it so it tastes even more like coffee. I tend to not do that. I like to make a delicate tea out of the yellow flowers. And I like to have that chilled in the summer. You guys can see that in a previous video. And it turns out sweet and delicate and delicious and floral and I just absolutely love dandelion flower tea. Those are my top 15 teas that I make and grow at home that have wonderful healing medicinal properties and are also just delicious and beautiful to make. I hope you guys will consider foraging, finding, or growing any of these to help make some delicious healing tonics and teas for yourself, whether to keep you warm in these chilly winter months or to cool down in the summertime. And of course, if you try to buy a lot of tea online, almost always they will come in multiple layers of plastic. Most of the bags have plastic as well if you're getting tea bags. So it's just going to save you so, so much money to make these yourself. If you try to buy some of these teas online, you're going to end up spending a lot of money. So I prefer to just go the free route and find it or grow it. And of course, save on plastic and waste and packaging too. If I'm going to buy tea from the store, maybe it's a special blend or something I can't grow myself, then I will use the company Traditional Medicinals. I am not sponsored or affiliated with them, but their packaging is 100% compostable, including the tea bag, which is very hard to find. It's the only company I know of that for sure everything is compostable in your home compost. And their blends are extremely high quality. So if you like any of these teas I mentioned today, and you just aren't in the position where you could grow them, maybe check out Traditional Medicinals. Thank you guys for hanging with me today. Leave a comment below what is your favorite herbal tea. I would love to know and tell me in a comment if you grow any of these yourself, or maybe now you're inspired to. Thanks for hanging with me. If you're new here, hit the subscribe button. I make new videos twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays, and I'll see you guys next time. Bye!