Growing wormwood - How it's done

If you want to strengthen your digestion naturally, then you should grow wormwood. How to do this and how you can use vermouth, read here.

Wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) is a bitter herb that can be used in good doses to strengthen human digestion. Which is why even the monks of the Middle Ages liked to resort to this spicy-smelling medicinal herb, especially when eating very greasy food.

No matter whether fresh, as a tea drink, tincture or digestive drink - vermouth should not be missing in any household. After all, it's always nice when you can use natural products to counteract complaints yourself.
So if you too want to strengthen your digestion, then you should simply grow this remedy yourself. Here's how to do it.

True Wormwood (Artemisia absinthium)
Growth:	60 - 80 cm
Growth:	40 - 50 cm
Flower color:	yellowish
Flowering:	July - September
Location:	Sun
Floor:	permeable, dry, neutral to alkaline

Plant wormwood - How it's done

The wormwood herb, which originates from the Mediterranean region, clearly prefers lean, well-drained soil in e.g. rock gardens. You can sow the seeds in full sun from the end of April to the end of May. However, do not cover them with soil, as these are light-germinating seeds.

Tip: Alternatively, you can also sow wormwood from the end of August to September to ensure a harvest of the herb, which grows to an average height of around 120 centimetres, next year.

After a germination time of two to three weeks, delicate wormwood plants will appear in the garden bed, which you can move individually from a height of around 7 centimeters (again make sure they are in a sunny location). The cultivation of two wormwood plants is perfectly sufficient for a normal household.

Tip: Wormwood becomes lignified over the years. You should therefore reseed or replant it every four years at the latest.replant by root division in fall.

Proper care for wormwood

Already after the first harvest (from around the end of July) you should cut back the wormwood significantly in order to encourage strong new growth. Ideally, you should dry the harvested leaves and the tips of the flower spikes in the shade before you process them further.

Tip: Wormwood produces yellow, almost inconspicuous panicles of flowers from July to September. However, you should only process these from the second harvest onwards.

Otherwise, the robust wormwood is actually quite undemanding when it comes to care. You can only fertilize it biologically by adding compost in autumn.

Use Tips for Vermouth

First of all: You should not enjoy wormwood if you have stomach ulcers and/or intestinal ulcers or if you are pregnant. You should only use it to a limited extent as a seasoning for meat dishes, because its bitter taste quickly overshadows the actual taste of a dish. Otherwise, you should simply try the following three tips for using vermouth:

» Tip 1 - Vermouth Tea:

Wormwood is primarily used as a tea drink, for which you should pour hot water over about 2 teaspoons of dried wormwood leaves per cup. Let everything steep for 10 minutes and filter the tea before enjoying it immediately.

» Tip 2 - Wormwood tincture:

You can also make a tincture from wormwood in combination with spirit of wine, which you can use mainly for external use (e.g. in the form of poultices, baths, etc.).