How to Grow Lemon Grass

A member of the sugar cane family, lemon grass is grown year-round in Thailand as well as in Florida and California, where it was brought by the Hmong, refugees from the Vietnam War. Dried lemon grass you buy in Asian grocery stores has about one-tenth the flavor of the fresh stalk. It's not hard to grow your own.

Lemon grass does best in hot climates but can be grown anywhere that has a hot summer. Just take it indoors from the first frost to the last in pots or tub planters and keep it in a warm, humid spot, like a sunny kitchen window. Or start it in a window from seeds. Lemon grass spreads reasonably quickly and within a year will require a two-gallon container.

To harvest, cut the newest stalks from the outside of the clump, slicing down just below the soil. According to The New York Times, Mountain Valley Growers in Squaw Valley, California, sells young lemon grass plants for $3.25 a pot at

http://www.mountainvalleygrowers.com

The company will ship all over the United States when the danger of frost is over.