Stevia............Where?? How??? And when???

[justusnak]

I have heard so much about Stevia.....and I was thinking...maybe this is something I need to look into growing myself.....as a sweetner. So, where can one find it?? How do you grow and use it?? And, when do I need to start it?

 

[Wifezilla]

I have a plant in a pot. It comes inside when it gets cold. I use it in teas and for cooking. I bought it at Lowes I think. You can grow it from seed but I haven't tried to do it yet.

 

[Blackbird]

I bought my seed from Mountain Rose Herbs. I also had a live plant from Guerneys I think it was. It got nice a big but died when I brought it inside when it started getting colder out.

None of my seeds started, or if they did, they did not grow. However I mailed some to Sally and she got some to start and grow, but I think her sheep got to them.

I would imagine that the actual dried leaves would taste different than the store-bought kind. I've never had store-bought stevia in anything that I am presently aware of, but I enjoyed the leaves from my own plant. I do know that it grows best in loamy soil.

 

[Blackbird]

This one looks like a good website;
http://www.stevia.net/growingstevia.htm

 

[hwillm1977]

I bought a pack of seeds from the local nursery, planted and tended them SO carefully because I'd heard it was hard to grow... a few germinated, but fell over and died within a couple days.

Then I bought a plant at the garden center, it grew great. I don't really have very many good windows for growing plants inside, so once we started getting frosts a couple weeks ago I chopped the whole plant down and dried it.

It works great in tea and coffee... I'm not really sure how to use it for anything else although I'd like to learn how...

Next year I plan on getting a few more plants.

 

[TxCountryMom]

I have found a few recipes with Stevia, but they mostly call for the processed Stevia from the store. I have a diabetic friend and would LOVE to make some strawberry jam for her for Christmas, so I'm going to try to modify the recipe for use with powdered stevia I bought from an herb site. I think if I "steep" the powdered stevia in water overnight, that might do the trick. Any ideas?

Oh, and the recipe I found is at: http://www.suite101.com/content/sugar-substitutes-recipes-using-stevia-a167939

 

[hoosier]

I think I bought mine at Home Depot.
I have read that it is difficult to start from seed, but I have not tried.

 

[Libertyhomestead]

Stevia powder from the leaves has a slight bitter, grass like taste. You can make an extract with vodka kind of like a solvent, shake it daily for a couple weeks, and then slowly heat it till the alcohol is evaporated. Whats left will be a concentrated liquid.

I've wondered if passing it through a micron filter before evaporating it would purify some of the chlorophyll taste and color out?

I'm glad to see it in stores, however, I would still like to find a way to make it without industrial processing.

I would like to make soda syrups for an aspartame and chemical free diet soda alternative for our inlaws. I got them the Soda Stream home soda maker this year.

 

[chickenjoe]

You can buy the plant and seeds online. I bought a plant for my wife a while ago. But she has a brown thumb so it lasted about 6 months. You can either dry the plant and crumble it up, or steep it in water and make a liquid sweetner.

 

[walnuthollow]

I'd like to know more about using Stevia also. Two years ago I bought a pack of seeds. Planted them all in our portable greenhouse and ended up with three plants. I also ordered a plant from a seed catalog. They all did great. When it started getting colder out I dried the leaves, crushed them in the food processer and I still have them in a container. I wasn't sure how to use them but knew I didn't want to throw them out either. Anyone have any ideas? I plan on growing more this year because I make alot of homemade mint tea. Sandra