Suanne and John's Backyard Garden: Cedar Tea Recipe

Welcome to my Blog

Hi, my name is Suanne and I am writing this blog to share some of the tips and recipes I have learned or created with our backyard garden. The garden itself is actually my husband John's but we have had a garden for over 25 years so I have picked up some garden knowledge along the way. We live in Austin, Texas so we are blessed with a year long growing season. We always have something to eat from the garden and this pretty much dictates what we eat. All of our meals are planned around what happens to be growing at the time. One of the biggest challenges is what I like to call crop maintenance. What to do with all of the vegetables? Beyond sharing with the neighbors and friends I am always trying creative approaches to preparing the bounty. So the blog seemed like a good way to both keep track of and share my recipes.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Cedar Tea Recipe

We get asked for this all the time so I am putting this in the blog to share it. January in Austin is high allergy time for the many people who are allergic to Cedar or actually Juniper trees that dot the landscape here. Several years ago my husband John and I started drinking a tablespoon a day of this cedar tea about the first of December. Our allergy symptoms went almost entirely away during the peak cedar season the first year. The second year even better. This is our third year taking the tea and we have had virtually zero symptoms.

The tea is just juniper berries picked right off the tree in our backyard. Boil 1/2 cup of berries in 1 cup water for a few minutes. Take off the heat and cool. Strain the liquid into a jar and keep refrigerated.

It is important to start around the first of December because if you wait until you actually have cedar symptoms then it is less effective. This may not work for everyone but it has been great for us. Much better than all of the over the counter or prescription medicines we used before