Tea in the Garden: Growing Your Own Herbs

The flavour difference between fresh-picked and dried herbs is striking. A handful of fresh peppermint leaves steeped in hot water produces a tea that smells and tastes immediately alive in a way that even good dried peppermint rarely matches. Growing your own means access to that freshness for the months your herbs are in leaf.

Beyond flavour, growing tea herbs is practical. Most are perennial or self-seeding — once established, they come back year after year with minimal effort. A small raised bed or a group of pots can produce more herb than most households will use fresh, with plenty left over to dry for winter.

It is also genuinely enjoyable. The process of growing something from a small plant to a productive harvest, then drying and using it in your own kitchen, closes a loop that feels satisfying in a way that buying a bag of dried herbs does not.

Mint is the most productive and most rewarding tea herb to grow — and the one most likely to take over your garden if you let it. The roots spread underground (rhizomes) and will colonise any available space enthusiastically. Grow it in a container, always.

A 30 cm pot is ideal. Use a good multipurpose compost, keep it watered, and place it somewhere with at least a few hours of sun. Mint tolerates some shade, which makes it well-suited to north-facing or partially shaded spots where other herbs struggle.

Peppermint (Mentha × piperita) and spearmint (Mentha spicata) are the two most useful tea varieties. Peppermint has the stronger menthol character; spearmint is sweeter and less intense. Both are widely available as plants from garden centres in spring.

Harvest by snipping stems just above a leaf node — the plant will branch from that point and become bushier. Cut hard in midsummer to encourage a fresh flush of new growth. Fresh mint can be used directly in hot water; pick more than you need in late summer and dry the surplus.

German chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla), the variety used in most chamomile tea, is an annual that self-seeds so freely it behaves like a perennial once you have it established. Sow it once and it will very likely keep coming back.

Sow seed directly outdoors in spring or autumn into a sunny spot with well-drained soil. Chamomile dislikes wet, heavy clay — if your soil is heavy, add grit or grow it in a raised bed. It is compact and well-suited to pots too, where a single plant can produce a good supply of flowers throughout the summer.

Harvest the flowers when they are fully open — typically from June onwards. Pick on a dry morning, after the dew has dried. The small, daisy-like flowers can be used fresh for an immediate brew or dried at low temperature (around 30–40 °C) for winter stores.

Drying properly matters: spread the flowers on a baking tray lined with parchment and leave in the lowest oven setting with the door slightly ajar for a couple of hours, or simply air-dry in a warm, well-ventilated spot out of direct sunlight for a few days. Stored in an airtight tin, dried chamomile flowers keep well for 12 months or more.

Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) is a perennial herb in the mint family that grows vigorously, smells gently of lemon and honey, and produces quantities of leaves from spring through to autumn. It is one of the easiest and most rewarding herbs to grow for tea purposes.

It tolerates a wide range of conditions — part shade suits it well, and it is not fussy about soil as long as it is not waterlogged. Buy a plant in spring from a garden centre, plant it in a generous pot or a sunny-to-partly-shaded border, and it will establish quickly. Divide the plant every two or three years in spring to keep it productive and share the surplus with anyone who wants one.

Lemon balm can also spread by seed, so deadhead flowers if you want to prevent self-seeding in borders. In a pot this is not an issue.

Harvest leaves freely throughout the growing season — regular harvesting encourages fresh growth. Fresh lemon balm makes a delicate, citrus-honey tea that is quite different from any dried version. For drying, harvest whole stems before flowering, tie into bundles and hang in a dry, ventilated space out of direct light for two weeks.

Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) is the most demanding of the four in terms of conditions — it needs full sun and very well-drained, ideally slightly alkaline soil — but once established in the right spot, it is long-lived and productive. A mature lavender plant in good soil will yield enough flowers for personal use with some to spare every summer.

For tea, English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) varieties like Hidcote or Vera are the most suitable. Continental French and Spanish lavenders (L. stoechas, L. dentata) have a more camphor-forward, less floral character that is not as pleasant in a cup.

Plant in spring into very free-draining soil or a gritty compost in a sunny pot. Lavender grown in pots needs excellent drainage — pot in terracotta with crocks at the base and do not let it sit in water. Trim after flowering each year to prevent the plant becoming woody and open-centred.

Harvest flower spikes just as the buds begin to open — this is when the volatile oils are most concentrated. Use fresh in small quantities (lavender is strong and easy to over-use in a cup) or dry in bundles. A pinch of dried lavender flowers in a chamomile or lemon balm blend adds a floral top note without dominating the cup.

Good drying preserves the volatile aromatic compounds that make home-grown herbs worth the effort. The enemies of good drying are heat, light and moisture — all three destroy the aromatic oils quickly.

The best general method is air drying. Tie small bundles of stems (10 to 15 stems, not too thick) with string and hang them upside down in a warm, well-ventilated spot out of direct sunlight — an airing cupboard, a covered shed, or a dry room with a window open works well. Most leafy herbs dry in one to two weeks; flowers like chamomile take a little longer.

For individual flowers like chamomile, spreading them on a clean cloth or paper-lined tray in a warm room is more practical than bundling. Turn them gently once a day until they are dry enough to crumble slightly without feeling damp.

Store dried herbs in airtight containers — tins, glass jars with lids, or clip-top jars — away from light and heat. Label with the herb and the harvest date. Properly dried and stored, most herbs hold good flavour for 12 to 18 months.

The aroma test applies here as much as with shop-bought herbs: open the container and smell before using. If the aroma has faded significantly, the flavour will have too. Our storage guide covers these principles in more depth for both home-grown and purchased herbs.

Once you have the four core herbs growing confidently, the natural next step is expanding. Several other tea herbs are easy and rewarding to add: lemon verbena (slightly tender, best in a pot you can bring in for winter), elderflower (a larger shrub — the flowers make a wonderful infusion), rose hips (from any Rosa rugosa, which hedges well and is very hardy), or echinacea (a beautiful perennial whose roots, leaves and flowers all have their place in herbal tradition).

The principle of starting with one or two and adding gradually is as true in the garden as it is at the brew station. A small, well-tended selection of productive herbs you know well is more useful than a large, neglected one.

For guidance on which herbs pair together well in blends — whether from your garden or the shops — the guides library covers individual herbs in detail, and our Herbal Tea Finder can help you think about which flavours complement each other.