Stevia, the sweetleaf

The recent snap of warm weather was an excit­ing glimpse of spring. I love win­ter and have thor­oughly enjoyed the snow this year, but the gar­dener in me can­not help but be enticed by the promise of a new gar­den­ing sea­son. I took a chance and used the short win­dow of thawed ground and tem­per­a­tures in the 50s to fin­ish some daf­fodil plant­ing that should have been wrapped up in Octo­ber. We’ll see if that turned out to be a wise deci­sion. As the cold took hold once again, I put down my bulb planter and picked up a few seed cat­a­logs. Always dan­ger­ous. I was very happy with my gar­den last year and my empha­sis on herbs. I plan to repeat many of last year’s plant­i­ngs, with a few new choices pep­pered in. One of my newer herbs will be stevia.

I actu­ally grew ste­via last year for the first time, but never really did any­thing with it. I used it once to sweeten sun tea; but found the fla­vor bit­ter. It was one of the first plants I stopped water­ing in the drought and thought maybe another time. It was not until recently that I learned my sun tea tasted bit­ter because I had used ste­via incor­rectly. I added fresh leaves, when in fact the ideal sweet­ness comes from dry leaves. More on that later. Ste­via has moved back to the top of the list and I am excited about the pos­si­bil­i­ties of my harvest.

Ste­via, Ste­via rebau­di­ana, is an herb in the Aster­ae­cae (sun­flower) fam­ily. It is com­monly referred to as sweet­leaf. It has been used as a nat­ural sweet­ener for hun­dreds of years in North and South Amer­ica. Ste­via extract is approx­i­mately 300 times sweeter than sugar and is very eas­ily grown and har­vested. It is most pop­u­lar in Japan, but has recently become very acces­si­ble in the United States. There is a sugar sub­sti­tute sold under the name Ste­via, which is crys­tal­lized ste­via extract. I would pre­fer to make my own extract to use as a nat­ural sweet­ener. Ste­via is an excel­lent choice for those look­ing to pro­duce a sugar sub­sti­tute in some form. Far less work, expense, and com­mit­ment than tend­ing a hon­ey­bee hive.

It is rec­om­mended that ste­via is grown from cut­tings rather than from seed, as ste­via seeds are noto­ri­ously slow and unre­li­able to ger­mi­nate. Ste­via will grow well in rich soil, amended with com­post, in full sun-partial shade. Ste­via will wilt in frost so it must not be planted until after May 15 in our grow­ing zone. The ideal time to har­vest ste­via is late in the sea­son before the first frost. The larger and deeper green ste­via leaves are, the stronger the sweet­ness. Fresh ste­via leaves have a bit­ter taste and must be dried. The water in the leaves causes this bit­ter­ness, so before mak­ing an extract allow the leaves to thor­oughly dry.

Once leaves are dry there are a num­ber of ways to make extract to use as sweet­ener. Infu­sions can be made with oil, vine­gar, or vodka. I plan to use my ste­via extract for bak­ing, so I will make vodka infu­sions. The alco­hol will cook off and leave sweet­ness behind. Another easy way to use ste­via for sweet­ness is to sim­ply add a dry leaf to a cup of tea.

I am always excited to learn about new ways I can use my gar­den to pro­duce ingre­di­ents for my cook­ing. It really is reward­ing to look in your pantry or freezer in the dead of win­ter and have a lit­tle taste of your sum­mer garden.

Com­mu­nity Gar­den Day planned

Join the Delaware County Mas­ter Gar­den­ers for the annual Com­mu­nity Gar­den Day. This year it will take place on Feb. 9 at the Colum­bus State Com­mu­nity Col­lege Delaware branch.

The event will begin at 10 a.m. and end at 4 p.m. Feb. 9. The reg­is­tra­tion is open to the pub­lic, but reser­va­tions must be made by Feb. 1. To reg­is­ter, call the OSU Exten­sion Office at 740–833-2030 or down­load a reg­is­tra­tion form at delaware.osu.edu and mail to the exten­sion office. Seat­ing is lim­ited, so make sure you sign up soon. The cost is $20 for the day and includes a box lunch, cof­fee and hand­outs. Hope to see you all there for a great day full of gar­den­ing inspiration.

Stephen Jones is an OSU Exten­sion Mas­ter Gar­dener volunteer.

Posted by Master Gardener on Jan 18 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.