How to grow lemongrass
This heat-loving herb prefers the tropics but with some mollycoddling it can be grown in the Waikato, writes Sheryn Dean of ‘NZ Gardener’.
For someone who nurtures lemongrass inside in winter and lovingly waters it all summer, to see it thriving in Thailand made me realise how pathetic my little plant is.
The lemongrass we know and use is commonly called West Indian lemongrass, but it actually originates from the warm climates of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asian countries like Myanmar (Burma), Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, where it flourishes almost like a wild weed, growing in lush clumps over a metre tall.
Here in the Waikato, I nurse it through the winter in front of my lounge windows and water it all summer and still only get a straggly 50cm-high cluster of thin stalks.
I could blame the climate or it could be that I am forever plucking the leaves to make tea.
I love making herbal teas from my garden and am constantly amused by people’s reaction when I offer them some.
Often keen to appear trendy and partake in something a little alternative, they visibly recoil when I grab scissors and head to the herb patch. Herbal tea, apparently, is
supposed to come from a tea bag, not from herbs. But after a diffusion of lemongrass in an old coffee plunger they are soon converted.
Fresh with a vibrant lemony flavour, it is no wonder that lemongrass is one of the most widely used herbs in cooking.
The entire stalk can be used; the leaves can either be sliced very finely or minced and added to soups and the thick bulbous stem can be pounded, bruised or cut into slices and added to a variety of recipes, such as curries, soups, casseroles, meats and seafood dishes.
Like all fresh herbs, lemongrass comes with a range of medicinal benefits and can be taken as a diuretic, stimulant and tonic. A lemongrass preparation together with pepper is believed to bring relief to menstrual troubles and nausea and induces one to perspire, cooling the body and bringing down a fever. Oil extracted from lemongrass can also be used as a mild insect repellent, which is no surprise as it is a close cousin of citronella.
How to grow
As it’s a tropical plant, lemongrass needs a warm, humid climate with