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Lemon Grass Lemon Grass!

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In the spring I bought six small pathetic looking Lemograss plants and planted them at the front of our kitchen garden which have now grown into large, lush and healthy grassy monsters. Just rubbing your hands on the leaves produces a lovely lemon fragrance on your skin. Lemongrass is great for adding flavour to cooking and for making refreshing tea. And if you want more plants it’s so easy to dig up and divide.

Cut a whole stalk as low down to the base as possible
Cut the lower, thicker and lighter coloured stem from the upper greener and thin grassy part.
The lower part can be used fresh, frozen or dried for use in cooking.
The grassy upper part is best used to make tea. It can be used fresh but if you have a lot then you can preserve it by hanging it upside down in bunches in a cool, shaded area with good air circulation for about two weeks
Or you can tie them into wreaths like these guys are doing. This is the mess free method as when you want to make tea you just drop a whole wreath into your pot or cup so there are no messy loose tea leaves.
Pour on boiling water and wait about five minutes
Stick the fire on, sit back, relax and enjoy a fresh cup of delicious Lemongrass tea
From the six original plants we now have a further twenty which we have planted along the fence of the kitchen garden.
We did this by digging up the whole plant, dividing it into several pieces and planting the new ones. Its tough to divide and we had to use a saw. Make sure new division has some roots on it before planting. Next year we are going to have tons of Lemongrass