This is one of our shade grown areas which is covered with the first flush of the year ready to be picked. Some areas are even more developed than is shown in this photo. I have never picked tea in March , usually in April and in some years the first of May. I guess [...]
Call me old fashion, but I have always used leaves to mulch under the tea plants. This is not only the natural bed for tea plants but gives them the nutrition they need as the natural mulch turns to compost. I have now gotten too many rows and can not physically get enough leaves out [...]
We have been trying to stay ahead of the weeds this year, as it did not freeze here this year. I had been crawling along ripping them up by hand. That works if you only have a few rows but now we have too many. I had to modernize. I discovered a tool in my [...]
In my photo section, I have added my new label. I am now making 10 oz bags which I sell for $30. I am bagging up green tea right now but will soon be doing black and Oolong. Oolong is what I seem to sell the most of but right now I have about [...]
January 6, 2019 Today I had a professional photographer come out and photograph the tea flowers. With the warm weather there are many thousands of blossoms now (as well on my big Camellias). I am wanting a real glamor shot of a flower to put on the new labels I am designing. My old labels [...]
Dec 28, 2018 Today we are cutting into the shade grown tea rows and pruning back this years growth. The leaves are larger, as I explained in my growing tea section, darker and really pretty. I rather hate to chop them down with my Black and Decker pruner but this is why they are here [...]
Today we continue to prune 18-20 year old bushes down to mere 14 inch stubs. It seems like much abuse to plants I have nurtured for 20 years. The pieces I prune off, I have always called them "knuckles," where I trim down to every year, look like tea bonsai trees. I am cutting these [...]
