Grow Your Chamomile for Mere Pennies

Today, I will teach you a trick to grow your own chamomile for mere pennies. 

Here I have my chamomile growing in my garden. It is a very pretty plant with these gorgeous white and yellow flowers. It smells great and brings many beneficial insects and pollinators into your garden. 

I actually grew my plant from seed that I purchased from Baker Creek. Now a pack of seeds like this will cost you $2.25 and will produce this lovely plant; however I have found an even cheaper way to do it. 

If you are interested in growing chamomile, it is likely that you are familiar with chamomile tea. Here is a box of 20 bags that I got for $1. 

You just cut open the bag, dump the contents into some soil, and make sure it is well watered, and put under some sort of light. 

Just 5 days later, here are our sprouts. 

You can start your chamomile in a cup indoors like I did here, or just sprinkle the tea bag where you want to grow the chamomile in your garden. 

So, why does this technique work? Well the part of chamomile that is used in making the tea is actually the flower, which is rich in seeds.

Let me show you how I would harvest my own chamomile. You just put your fingers under a flower like this and pop the whole flower off. As you can see this center yellow part is full of seeds, and also makes up a large part of the flavor of your tea. 

You can spread it out to dry at room temperature, or put it in a dehydrator at the lowest setting. Either way, you do not use enough heat that it will destroy the viability of the seed below, so you can use the dried herbal tea to start new plants. 

So, if you are not growing chamomile and want to give it a try, just reach into that cabinet and pull out a box of herbal tea. You will never have to buy it again!