project chamomile and more about tea

After several attempts, including a start that bit it, I finally, from seed!, got my chamomile to grow. And while gone, the plant tripled in size. One of my daily gardening tasks is harvesting, which my darling friends did for me while gone. Every day, I pick the flowers, preferably the ones with the plumpest centers, and put it on newspaper to dry. After drying for two days, I put it into a glass jar. How much will I be able to harvest at this rate by the end of production? I'm hoping I won't have to buy any chamomile all winter long. Fingers crossed.

Yesterday, I made some delicious iced tea, like surprisingly delicious. I didn't try any until this morning, and was wowed. I didn't measure well, but here's a rough recipe:

I steeped two sprigs of fresh lemon verbena for about 10 minutes. Then I added two tablespoons of dry, loose leaf jasmine. A couple of minutes later, I added about 3 or 4 tablespoons of organic chung oolang (loose leaf black tea) and let that steep for 3 or 4 minutes. Then I filtered it, added local honey, and diluted the tea in a large pitcher with filtered water. Yum! My family drinks a lot of iced tea, so I gained a renewed taste for it while I was back home.