LEMON - BALM

      Organic Lemon Balm

           200 Seeds Pack    

Lemon balm is native to Southern Europe and Northern Africa, and its use dates back to ancient Greece and Rome, where the essential oils were employed for aiding digestion, and leaves were made into calming teas or tonics. Lemon balm made its way to North America in Colonial times, and today it is naturalized and cultivated in temperate regions worldwide.

Lemon balm is an aromatic herb in the mint family and is botanically classified as Melissa officinalis. It is often referred to as the “happy herb” as it has traditionally been used to uplift spirits and promote a calm sense of well-being. The genus name, Melissa, comes from the Greek word for the honey bee. Lemon balm is a bushy perennial herb that reaches about 60 centimetres tall and wide and produces small, delicate, white, or yellow nectar-filled flowers when mature. The wrinkled, jagged-edged, heart-shaped green leaves grow opposite along square stems, characteristic of the plant family, and the plant has an intense lemon scent, especially when touched, bruised, or crushed. Lemon balm leaves offer a sweet-tart flavour with a lemony zest and a hint of mint.

                                                                                                                  PLANTING&GROWING

The aromatic herb can grow in plant containers in your balcony garden or inside near a sunny window.
Soaking needs to be done at least a few hours before planting, and preferably overnight. To prevent damping off when starting seeds indoors, it’s essential that you disinfect all of your pots, plastic grow trays, seed cells, and seedling tray covers before you reuse them. Can grow in plant containers in your balcony garden or inside near a sunny window. 
If you don’t have a suitable garden spot, try a container instead.  A pot that’s at least 8 inches wide and it has drainage holes. Due to sensitive roots, repotting is best avoided. Instead, make sure you choose a suitable growing container for your seeds right from the start.

Lemon Balm is grown outside in summer and all year round in greenhouses to protect the plants from the winter cold. 

Seeds should be planted about 1 to 2 inches apart and roughly 1/4 to 1/2 inch deep.  Soil should be moist, well-drained, medium rich soil. The pH of the soil should ideally be in the range of 6.0 to 6.7.  Lemon balm  plant thrives with about six hours of direct sunlight on most days.

Bees are enamoured with the irresistible nectar that’s filled in lemon balm flowers. Because this herb contains some of the same chemicals that are in bee pheromones, modern beekeepers use an ancient technique of crushing the leaves to draw worker bees to their newly built hives.

Lemon Balm does well near dill, basil, squash, broccoli, cabbage family, cauliflower, hollyhocks, melons, angelica, nasturtiums, squash, tomatoes. 

Snip off the tops of stems before the plant flowers for continued harvest of leaves. For coriander seeds, allow plants to flower; seed will be ready for harvest 2 to 3 weeks after flowering when they turn light brown.