I've taken one cutting from the plant since I potted it. I'll be taking another cutting this afternoon. As you can see, it's not terribly large or bushy. Fortunately, we still have 1 1/2 months of good growing weather. Perhaps it still has time to perform.
My first cutting is dried and in a bag in the cupboard. The plan is still to take all my dried stevia and run through my coffee grinder.
I was talking with some ladies last week about using stevia. We all seem to agree that it has an aftertaste, if used on it's own. But perhaps when used in a 50/50 blend with table sugar, it will have a better taste. One woman said that she liked stevia in vitamin water-type drinks. So beverages look like one good use for stevia.
From what I've read, stevia's sweetness does not break down with heat, making it a better sugar substitute in baking than the yellow, pink or blue packeted sweeteners. In fact, the components in stevia which contain the sweetness are more readily released with heat than cold. So, by filling a tea ball or bag with stevia leaves and immersing in hot water, one can make their own liquid sweetener for uses such as a few drops on fruit compotes/salads, in dressings, and in cold drinks.
Interestingly, there appears to be some controversy over the safety of stevia. So far, I have yet to read anything conclusive on this. My thinking is, distilled and processed extracts of stevia may be like anything else. When we tamper with nature too much, we wind up with a form of a food that lacks the original food's inherent health boosting qualities, and has a pronounced amount of it's detrimental effects. The whole leaf has been in use in other cultures for over 1500 years, with no recorded ill-effects.
As with everything else, be sensible, use caution where applicable. Until more is widely known about stevia, if pregnant just don't use it. And if not pregnant, don't overdo it, especially in the refined forms, such as those little green packets. We all could do with less processed food items in our diets. This post was not meant to be any sort of medical advice/article or distillation of medical information. These are simply my opinions on what I've read to date.
Anyways, my stevia experiment continues.
In warmer climates (So. California and Florida), stevia is a perennial. At the end of summer, I plan on both bringing the plant indoors (and hopefully overwintering it in the window), and taking a cutting from it to try and root in water. With luck, next year I won't need to buy another plant.
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