A Detailed Guide to Lemon Balm Cultivation Techniques and Uses
It looks like mint, but it is not related to mint at all. The whole plant gives off a strong lemon fragrance, and brewing a tea with fresh or dried leaves is truly a great pleasure. It can be planted in all four seasons and prefers a relatively humid climate, but summer should be avoided. It can tolerate dryness slightly, but it needs more water to grow well. Therefore, the soil should be kept at proper moisture and not allowed to become too dry.
[Scientific name]Melissaofficinalis.
[English names]LemonBalm, BalmMint, BeeBalm
[Family]Lamiaceae
[Characteristics]A perennial herb, about 30-50 cm tall, with good branching and therefore a clumping habit. The leaves are heart-shaped, with shallow serrated leaf margins and prominent veins. The stems and leaves are densely covered with coarse hairs. It is rarely seen flowering in Taiwan, China, but when it flowers the stem suddenly elongates, the newly grown leaves become smaller, and the flowers are whorled in the leaf axils and white. Besides the green-leaf variety, there is also a golden variegated variety; this variety's variegation is not very stable, and the golden parts are easily sunburned, and its growth vigor is also weaker. Lemon balm is native to the Mediterranean coast and West Asia, and commercial cultivation is more common in Central Europe, while the lemon balm tea drunk by immigrants in the Americas is actually American native horsemint.
[Cultivation method]Lemon balm is robust and very easy to cultivate. Compared with other herbs, it is more heat-tolerant, and it will not rot at the roots even with more soil moisture, so lemon balm can still grow well in the high-temperature and rainy summer environment of Taiwan, China. About two weeks after initial planting, once new roots have developed, pinch out the growing tips 2-3 times in succession to encourage more branching and increase future harvests. Because the stems of lemon balm are slender and long, the branches naturally lodge after growing longer, and this habit makes the plant occupy a large area. Therefore, in commercial cultivation abroad the field spacing is about 50 cm, and when growing in flowerpots, a large shallow pot is more suitable.
[Propagation]Can be done by sowing, cuttings, and division. Because the seeds are positively photoblastic, no soil covering is needed after sowing, and the germination rate is about 50%. For cuttings, cut 5 cm-long shoot tips as material and insert them into a clean medium; they root very easily, and can be transplanted in about 2-3 weeks, but note that lemon balm leaves are thin, so you must water frequently to maintain humidity and provide 50% shade, otherwise the cuttings will dry out and die before they can root. In the division method, the parts of the plant stems that touch the ground root easily; cut them off and replant them.
[Harvest and use]The stems and leaves are the main harvest for lemon balm, and they can simply be cut directly. The leaf base easily sprouts again, but if flower spikes appear they should be removed immediately to encourage regrowth, because flowering and seed setting will stop its growth. Lemon balm has a fresh, pleasant fragrance without pungency, and is very suitable as a seasoning in cooking. Lemon balm tea is also very simple to make: put 1.5-4.5 grams of fresh lemon balm into 1 liter of boiling water, strain after 10 minutes, and it is a refreshingly fragrant drink. Pharmacologically it has a calming effect and the effect of treating insomnia, and it is also called "the green wound medicine" because the oxycarbon compounds contained in lemon balm oil absorb oxygen, causing bacteria to die from lack of oxygen, but it is better not to exceed 10 grams per day as a suitable dosage. Home uses: the juice squeezed from fresh stems and leaves can polish wooden furniture and give it a glossy sheen.