Harvesting Moringa for My Mom's Tea

Moringa Bouquet for Mom 

I'm so excited that my mom is coming to visit for a few days.  Our moringa plant has been growing nicely (with a little help from a recent deep watering with rainwater from our cistern) so I went ahead and harvested some to dry for some nutritious tea for my mom.

It's super easy to snap off the branches. The moringa actually likes to be pruned this way. It encourages new growth.  

Next I wash it over our metal dish pans. (That water will go on our Mexican Honeysuckle.) 

I wrap a twist tie around the stem and hang them in a bunch to dry on a rack in our guest room. It takes about 4 days for them to dry that way. The smell of fresh moringa fills the room! 

I remember when I first planted it by seed in our (then) new right-of-way basin. Oh, the memories...

#lovemyrainbasin

After the leaves are dry, I take them off of the branches.

Here's how much tea it made for my mom. 

Then they are ready to be scooped into a tea ball to seep in a cup of boiling water. 

Can't wait to share a nice cup of moringa tea with my mom.

NOTE: Our moringa are planted in the right of way basin - which is great when it rains. (It grows up to 6-8 feet after the monsoon rains.) But not so good in the winter since it has no protection from the cold. It always dies back when we have a hard freeze so I harvest the leaves before then. But we're always excited when it comes back in the spring. 

https://www.sustainablelivingtucson.com/2024/01/harvesting-before-freeze.html

More moringa memories: 

https://www.sustainablelivingtucson.com/2018/05/the-story-of-4-little-moringas.html

More information: 

Why is moringa good for you?

Harvesting Before the Freeze

Thursday, I heard it was supposed to freeze overnight so I went ahead and harvested the moringa leaves that were big enough for tea. I rinsed them off and laid them out to dry.  (When I have longer branches, I hang them to dry.)

It didn't freeze that night. 

But it snowed yesterday! 

So our moringa survived to live another day. I went ahead and grabbed a handful to add to some left-over moringa and chayote soup. The hot soup warmed me right up. 

Pulling the moringa leaves off of the little branch.

You may have noticed that our largest moringa tree (shown above) looks kinda scrawny this year. That was the result of a little experiment I conducted to see how well they would do on just the rainwater collected in our right-of-way basin. (After all, it had grown so big and full after the monsoon storms of 2019...) But I hadn't counted on the long dry spell we had this summer. Our poor moringa really suffered. The two smaller trees actually looked stunted. We finally gave in and watered them with harvested rainwater (a total of three times this year) in an attempt to get some leaves to harvest. In retrospect, we should have done it sooner. Live and learn.

Deep watering stunted moringa in basin.

It was a good thing that I harvested the leaves, because I woke up to a frosty 28 degrees this morning! It's COLD! 

Overflow from our cistern was frozen.

By 11 a.m. our biggest moringa looked like this...  

sad

On the bright side, it always comes back from the roots in the spring. 

Though...I am trying another experiment... (I never learn!) In past years I wrapped insulation around the bottom of the trunks to protect them from freezing. This year I decided not to since moisture had gotten trapped under it.  And it's supposed to rain soon. So cross your fingers.  

 In the meantime, at least I saved moringa tea to send to my mom... 

Dried moringa tea leaves.

MORE INFORMATION: 

Harvesting and Prepping My Winter Garden for the Freeze

NOTE: Our moringa trees were planted in the right of way to take advantage of the rainwater in the catchment basin. But they have no protection from the cold so they die back after a hard freeze. But there are large moringa trees in Tucson that don't freeze because they are sheltered by a wall or other trees. 

Harvesting and Prepping My Winter Garden for the Freeze

Brr... Holding this ice is cold....

After some winter rain, we had our first frost and then deep freeze in Tucson with the temperature getting as low as 28 degrees at night. Yesterday I woke up to find frost on our purslane mulch and ice in the bird baths. 

A few days before, I started harvesting and preparing for the hard freeze. It was past time to harvest my sunchokes (or as we affectionately call them "fartichokes.") The stalks and leaves were all dried up, and some of the roots were breaking through the ground and turning purple. 

 So I pulled the stalks up with the roots. Check out all the edible tubers! 

Can't tell my fingers from the tubers, can you? 

I was so excited that I called my neighbor Julie over to look. She took this pic for me. 

She got a taste of the oven-roasted sunchokes we made for dinner. 

I also picked some red chiltepins (leaving some for the birds.) I had given the last batch to Uncle Rick. 

The next day I harvested most of the moringa tree and hung the branches out to dry for tea. 

I grabbed some leaves and a handful of pods to make moringa soup (using broth I had made from kitchen scraps of onions, celery and carrots.) 

I'm afraid that didn't leave much left on our pour moringa. Just some of the smaller leaves, flowers and pods. See the leaves drooping after the freeze... I hope the seeds are still good in the bigger pods. From past experience I know that most of the trunks and branches will die in a hard freeze. We will eventually prune them down to about six inches. 

But don't worry, in the Spring they always come back from the roots. I like to give them the best chance by wrapping insulation around the bottom of the trunk. 

Next I tended our little winter garden.  I simply put a cloth over the cage that protects my basil from the birds and squirrels.  I didn't bother to cover the chard since it seems to do alright in the cold.  It is also protected by a canopy of palo verde branches and a wall on the other side.   

Yesterday, at the Master Gardeners Winter Garden class, I learned that lettuce and carrots thrive in the winter. The teacher recommended that I keep the soil (not the plants) damp. 

While I was at it, I also dug up some basil by the roots and planted them in a pot that I  brought into the house. (The day before I had sent one home with a friend who brought by his extra veggies from Produce on Wheels.) 

A volunteer avocado plant and our basil snug in their pots on the dinning room table.

But I needn't have worried. The basil under the cover fared well in the freeze. I think being in the ground and the nearby tree and wall helped.

I left the cover off to get a little sun this afternoon.  (Oh! That reminds me I should go cover it!) 

We have a tomato plant that still has some tomatoes on it. Looks like it's protected by the warmth from the south-facing wall. 

My curry plants are absolutely thriving in the cold. 

I'm afraid my new dragon fruit isn't doing so well....

I learned that you shouldn't water cactus before a freeze. My bad. 

I also learned from the Master Gardeners class that you shouldn't fertilize the fig tree before the freeze because the new growth would be more vulnerable. I hope that doesn't include the veggie water and used tea leaves. I use to nourish the soil under our little fig tree. We have some nice mycelium in that soil. The instructor did recommend mulch to keep the soil warm. (But keep it two inches from the trunk of the tree.) 

I was happy to hear that I didn't have to water trees that have gone dormant in the winter. 

It's kinda nippy in here.  A nice mug of moringa tea with orange would really hit the spot! 

For the list of upcoming Master Gardeners classes, go to:

https://extension.arizona.edu/pima-master-gardeners

After the freeze

I had just finished posting my last blog celebrating our flourishing moringa trees when BAM! someone asked me how they did in the sudden freeze. I wandered outside to look - thinking I might find a few wilted leaves.  I am still reeling from what I found. All the branches and leaves were frost bitten and drooping like stick figures in a hangman game.

By the next day, the flowers had dried on the branches. I tried one. Blech! It tasted awful. I hoped that the hearty pods would make a comeback.  But a few days later they shriveled up and died, too.   

I shared my disappointment with my mom. How would I face the neighbors who had watched me lovingly nurturing my moringas since they were little. Even when it was time to trim them back so they could branch out, I didn't.  I wanted the neighbors to see how well they grew in Dan's catchment basin. Now the whole neighborhood can see my Charlie Brown moringa trees. Mom asked if I was going to share how they were doing on our blog. "I think you should," she said. But was there anything positive I can take from this experience, any lessons to impart? 

They say the best lessons come from failure.... I certainly have my regrets. Why didn't I listen to the guy on Tucson Backyard Gardener who warned us that it was time to harvest the last of the leaves? Why didn't we cover the whole tree instead of lamely wrapping a sheet around the trunk? Dan said that it was important to see how this tropical tree would fare in freezing weather. The answer is clear. They don't. I suppose that is why some people grow their moringa in pots, so they can take them in out of the cold. But I've also read that the pot stunts their growth.  

If we had potted them we wouldn't have had the abundant leaves that we enjoyed every day. Dan wouldn't have been able to grab his daily moringa supplement while out walking the dog. Towards the end (sob), I was adding them to everything: soups, tomato sauce, calabacitas, eggs... I enjoyed moringa tea everyday - iced tea with fresh orange juice or a hot cup to make me feel better when I was sick... I even brought some to an ailing friend. Ah, the memories...  I wouldn't have missed it for the world!  (Better stop before I break into song.) 

We plan to prune what's left of our moringa down to a stump so it comes back as a bush. I hear they will come back next growing season with even more branches and leaves. To everything there is a season. (There I go again with the songs...) 

Yesterday I harvested some of the dried leaves from the branches. (See pic at top of page.) They came off easily.  We seeped our own blend last night and shared a lovely cup of tea. It was even better than the tea from the fresh leaves!

And I won't regret what I did for love. 

https://www.facebook.com/oursacredplant/videos/1476142765802251/

Sinking in the Autumn Rain

I was overjoyed that it finally rained last night!  First thing in the morning I scurried outside to see how my garden was doing. The cowpeas were thriving, snug in their bed of pala verde mulch and some fallen corn stalks.

 One still had a flower!

The tomato plant seemed to enjoy the fresh rainwater. With a little help from some mulch to keep the ground consistently moist, the tomato had gone from orange to red overnight.

When we first started this garden we used some stinky compost (not good), but I tended the soil with used coffee grounds and tea leaves until the soil is really rich and nice now. That, and palo verde mulch, is all we use in this kitchen garden. Tryin' to keep it native - to see if we can actually grow food with only what we have at our place. 

When I first went out, I got sticky mud on my feet from trekking through our backyard basin. By late morning the ground was already hard and dry.  But the little mounds of mulch around the fig trees were holding the moisture nicely. A good reminder that we need to finish digging the basin and fill it with mulch! 

It wouldn't be morning without checking on the moringa in the catchment basin. The pala verde mulch was thinning a bit, but along with the roots of the native grass and some moringa branches with yellowing leaves that I had "chopped and dropped," it was forming a nice sponge to hold the rainwater. I noticed that the mulch also prevented erosion from the rain. 

This little guy (can you spot him?) flittered by to enjoy the sweet moringa nectar. Our moringa is great at attracting pollinators of all kinds!

I'd say that was worth celebrating! So I grabbed a branch. (They come off easily at the stem. It's a very giving tree...) Thought I'd try my hand at making some moringa tea.

I washed the leaves thoroghly.  Boiled stems and all for about a minute then strained out the leaves. (It's the water that has most of the nutrients.)  It tasted sorta like green tea. I tried to sweeten it with stevia, but it didn't really work. I liked it better plain. (Maybe it would work with a combination of white tea?)  

Later that afternoon, I was so fatigued from working on desktop activist; I needed a nap. I drank one glass of moringa tea and was replenished immediately. Even had enough energy to write this blog! 

To autumn rain, muddy feet, mulchy gardens and miracle moringa! Cheers!