Growing Stevia in Brisbane

Stevia is a plant native to south America that has been used as a natural sweetener for hundreds of years. I first found out about it when a box of stevia satchels came in my shopping as a free sample from Coles online. Brisbane's sub-tropical climate is perfect to give growing this a go, so I went to my local Bunnings store and picked up two plants for $3.50 each!

I recently bought 2 young stevia plants from my local hard-ware store

I haven't actually used it in any cooking yet, but the young leaves are sweet to taste. Apparently we can dry the young leaves in our dehydrator and grind them into a powder to use like sugar. Stevia is very sweet but only has a fraction of the calories of sugar, and what's more, its easy to grow. That's food for thought!