Growing, Harvesting and Drying Stevia

Three years ago, I had never heard of stevia. My first experience with it was in the form of cuttings in the greenhouse. I opened the bag and read the tag, "Stevia? What the heck is this?" My co-worker informed me that it was an herb for sweetening. What?!  I ate a leaf off one of the cuttings (we do that from time to time at work, eat the plants. Got to see if they are worth selling!) and was hooked. I jumped in with both feet.

As with all new things I grow, I never do it right the first time. (Must have something to do with that jumping in with both feet). My original plan was to use the leaves to brew sun tea because that's what my co-worker told me they were good for. Didn't bother to do any actual research myself. Here's the thing: I don't like sun tea. Even when I used chai tea, didn't like it. So I grew 2 plants that first season (badly, wrong place) and used basically none of it.

In the meantime, I found Stevia sweetner in the store. Fell in love with it for my morning tea. I have blood sugar issues so I try to say away from sugar and the fact that stevia has a glycemic index of ZERO speaks volumes for it. No other sweetener can say that. And it's natural. 

So I tried again. Planted it in a better spot and did some research. It is a South American plant that likes heat and dryer conditions (yay drier conditions! I can so do that!). And while you can use the leaves throughout the season for iced tea and lemonade, the sweetest leaves don't come until after a frost. Seriously, it's like this plant was made for me!

The hardest part actually was timing the harvest. As you know, weather in the midwest is unpredictable. It can be 70 one day and 20 the next with a major snowstorm on the way. While the leaves gets sweeter after the first light frost, a hard frost will damage the plants. It's needs the cold to get the sweetest leaves, but too cold and your plant is garbage. You can see where timing can be difficult!

Last year, which was the first year I harvested in the fall, I battled the cold to go out and pull those plants up. I had to pick and choose among the damaged leaves to get enough to harvest. Even with that small amount, however, I was able to get enough dried stevia to last about 2 or 3 months. 

Considering that a success, I planted two stevia plants this year. I pretty much ignored them throughout the season except for watering the garden as a whole and pinching back the tips once or twice while I was fiddling with the basil. Pinching back the tips is probably the most important thing to do throughout the season. You don't want the plant to flower before the frost because flowering takes away from the sweetness. Fortunately, stevia is a slow-growing plant and a pinch or two is all it takes to make for a nice full plant and push flowering into the fall past harvest time. 

I believe my stevia may have stayed out in the garden for two or three, possibly four frosts. Honestly, our weather has been so crazy here in Minnesota I can't be sure. It is planted close to my house on the south side so it fared very well despite my neglect. Of the two plants I lost one branch, but no matter, I still had plenty!

Because stevia is not hardy in this area, I just pulled those plants up, roots and all, shook off the dirt and brought them in the house. And then stood there wondering just how I was going to get all these leaves off the stems. Flashback to last year's hunt and pick mission made me tired before I even started. Fortunately, the quality of this year's crop was far superior. I was able to simply hold each stem with one hand and strip off the leaves with the other. It actually went rather quickly. The whole pile took about a half hour or less. In the end, I had a bowl full of stevia leaves and a rather small pile of stems which went into the composter. 

I then ran the leaves through the salad spinner to rinse and dry them. Then, I spread them on paper towels to absorb any extra water. Next step, actually drying the leaves. Every site I've ever read indicates that drying stevia in the sun is the best but in the words of Sweet Brown: Ain't nobody got time for that. Truer words were never spoken particularly when living in Minnesota. It's fall. I had to wait for a frost. The sun might be out, it might not. Chances are it's windy as all hell and it's just bye-bye stevia!

So no, there will be no drying in the sun for my stevia. The oven works just fine (a dehydrator is great if you have one, which I don't). After Googling "how to dry stevia" it seems the consensus for oven temperature is about 140 degrees F. Yeah, my oven doesn't go that low so 170F it was. Normally, it takes about 20 minutes or so to dry a batch but I was drying cranberries at the same time so it took about 40-50 minutes per batch.

Mostly, the process was incredibly passive so although the whole process took about 6-7 hours, it really wasn't a lot of work. I lined two cookie sheets with parchment paper, spread a single layer of leaves on each, put them in the oven and set the timer. The first batch was the most labor intensive since I checked on it several times to see how dry it was. After that, all I did was dump the dry leaves into a bowl, spread another layer of leaves, shove them in the oven, set the timer and go about my business. 

As I dumped the dried leaves in the bowl I kind of smashed them up with a meat tenderizer mallet (I have had this handy little kitchen utensil for decades and never once used it for it's intended purpose. Maybe someday...). Because I plan on putting the dry leaves in a tea strainer, I don't want them too fine. I have pulverized them with a mortar and pestle to get a fine powder. However, if you have a large batch you could run them through a coffer or herb grinder. Maybe even a spin in the food processor would work. Even still, you can see how the leaves crumbled pretty fine. 

The leaves on top weren't quite as dry as they should have been. No matter. I left the bowl on the counter overnight and by the next day they were crumbly as well. Seriously, I love passive projects. While the time involved may be long, my involvement is pretty limited. Works for me!

Once the leaves were all dry and pulverized to my satisfaction, I poured the powder into jars. You can use any air tight container or storage bags. This was just what I had on hand. I was so proud of the amount of stevia that I got! This should last me certainly through the winter. It's also given me a new appreciation for the cost of processed stevia I buy from the store. It takes a lot of leaves to fill that little 4 ounce bottle! For as much as I use stevia in my tea, growing and drying my own is certainly worth the effort, especially when my effort is so minimal.

Epilogue: See that bowl up there? Yeah, I decided to make popcorn one night. Since the bowl only held dried leaves I didn't feel that it warranted a complete washing so just wiped it out with paper towels before dumping in my popcorn. Best. Lazy. Move. Ever. If, like me, you like the salty-sweet taste of kettle corn, this is a great non-sugar alternative. Loved it. Tried it out again a few days later by sprinkling the actual leaves onto my popcorn. Yep. Loved it. But don't over do it. A little goes a long way. I've found that when I use too much stevia in anything, it tastes bitter rather than sweet.

Next: The laziness continues! Tomato sauce the easy way.