About ten years ago I became aware of a plant that had a natural sweetness in its leaves. It was many times sweeter than sugar, absolutely natural and calorie free.
Plus it had been used as a natural sweetener around the world for generations with no known side effects.
The plant, Stevia rebaudiana, is also easy to grow from seed. Just as it was about to reach the British gardener, something weird happened.
Seed was withdrawn suddenly from sale, deleted from the seed catalogues and controversy reined. Puzzling really when here we had a calorie free, natural sweetener within the grasp of ‘Joe Public’, but perhaps that was the problem.
You draw your own conclusions!
Now, some ten or so years later, it’s back, hooray and today you can buy seed and plants from Suttons Seeds. It’s the perfect plant for the greenhouse and although it is frost tender, you can grow a crop in a season and dry the leaves for use through the winter.
Grind the leaves into a powder and you can use them as a substitute for sugar in baking and cooking, and you can use it fresh in hot drinks or puddings.
It’s perfect for adding to the first spring shoots of stewed rhubarb. www.suttons.co.uk/stevia
