Cost per liter чайный гриб 'kombucha'

Home made kombucha (which is often called чайный гриб, pronounced: chaynyy grib) and store bought are two very different things.  The diversity of live cultures, the numbers of culture forming units, as well as the presence of organic acids, can be far higher in home made. 

Store bought can be pasturised (ie the beneficial microbes are dead), or filtered (removing some of the larger microbiota), and more often than not it is unripe and does not contain the full range of beneficial organic acids and other substances that kombucha can produce.  While live microbes are likely beneficial, the organic acids are probably the healthiest part of kombucha.  Store bought often is often higher in sugar, and can have various other additives that I don't want to drink. 

The stuff you get in a can or bottle in the shops if often so under-ripe that it contains few organic acids, and has a low concentration of the few acids it does contain.  The stuff from the shops would probably be better described as 'kombucha flavoured ice tea'.  

While store bought probably isn't bad, comparing the two would be like comparing apple juice with apple flavoured sugary cordial.  While not the greatest analogy, you get the idea.  

Now that I've said not to compare them, I am going to do exactly that.  I am going to compare home made kombucha with store bought kombucha.  I am not comparing flavour, or health benefits, or presence of live cultures, or number of colony forming units, or presence of organic acids, or any other nutrient, I will be comparing the price of home made kombucha with the price of store bought kombucha.  

Kombucha looks like a jellyfish in a jar

My kids and I go through a lot of kombucha over summer, sometimes less and sometimes more over winter.  I could not afford to buy kombucha flavoured drinks from the store, but can I can easily afford to make kombucha at home.  Making kombucha at home is cheap, really cheap.  

I make continuous brew kombucha.  This is the easiest and safest method.  I don't add any flavouring or do a second ferment because I like the taste of raw kombucha.  Making kombucha is simple and it never goes wrong if you do it the traditional way.  If you can boil water, you can make чайный гриб the traditional way.  

Traditional continuous brew чайный гриб

Price of store bought kombucha

The price of store bought kombucha is strangely a difficult thing to find.  Most shops sell a weird and wonderful array of drinks with amazing sounding flavourings that may or may not taste like kombucha, and may only have a small percentage of kombucha in the final product.  Some are high in sugar, others have non-sugar sweeteners added, some pasturise it and then add one species of probiotic of so they can claim it is a probiotic drink.  I assume store bought kombucha are similar to the wonderful array of ice tea that is sold in supermarkets.  They are expensive, and some sound utterly delicious, but I have never tried them.  

I looked around and the price of supermarket kombucha varies wildly.  I considered trying to find raw kombucha and comparing those prices, but raw unflavoured kombucha is difficult to find and seems to often cost more than the flavoured kinds.  I think the most sensible way to compare prices is if I found a few places that sell kombucha, and then listed their cheapest variety (whether it was flavoured or not).  I decided to use the cheapest unit price as this is most easily comparable even when they have different size bottles or cans.  

The cheapest I could find in Coles was $6.35 per litre.  The cheapest I could find in Woolworths was $8.80 per litre.  The cheapest I could find in Harris Farm Market is $15.12 per liter.  If we average out the two lowest ones (and ignore the higher one), this gives a rough idea of the price per litre of about $7.57 per litre.  

It is noteworthy that there were plenty of places selling kombucha flavoured drinks for a lot higher prices than these.  Some of the micro breweries charged prices so high that they make me consider quitting my day job and becoming a full time kombucha maker.  But I digress.  

Kombucha biofilm looks unappetising

Price of home made kombucha

I make continuous brew kombucha.  For me it costs under $0.15 per litre.

Given the price at the supermarket is around 50 times more expensive, the cost of making it at home seems so low that it seems hard to believe.  I will break down the cost below so you can see I am not making this sound cheaper than it really is.  If anything I am rounding up.

I make continuous brew kombucha,  I have this in a glass jar with a line that I drew on the jar.  We drink чайный гриб, once the liquid drops to the line on the side of my jar I add 2 litres of cool sweetened tea.  It is very simple, the time and effort needed per batch is negligible. 

Let's add these costs up so you can see the the total comes in slightly under 15 cents per litre. 

I use 1/2 cup white sugar (about 110 grams) which costs ~14 cents to make 2 litres of kombucha, or just over 7 cents per litre.

Tea bags costs about 2 cents per bag, I use 2 or 3 teabags to make 2 litres of kombucha, or about 3 cents per litre.

Cost of electricity to boil kettle 5-6 cents for a 2 litre kettle, or about 3 cents per litre.

Total: Around 26 cents per 2 litre batch of sweet tea, or around 13 cents per litre of kombucha.  

чайный гриб is very cheap to make at home

There are some one off costs that are not factored in above.  You likely already own a kettle and a measuring cup so I won't go into the price of buying new ones.  Perhaps you want to buy a jar with a tap? 

You don't need thermometers, you don't need heaters or a warm spot in your house, you don't need special sterilisation equipment, you don't need pH test kits.  I never use any of these things, and I never had a batch that failed.  Remember, countless generations of people brewed kombucha in Siberia without issue and they certainly didn't have comfortably warm houses, or (until the 1950s or 1960s) electricity, or use anything fancy.  

I found an 8L jar with tap at Target or Kmart $24.  Perhaps you prefer the 8.7L glass jar about $40 from Bunnings or a set of 2 for about $30 each.  You could probably find something cheaper online, or you may be lucky enough to buy one from a garage sale.  

Traditionally, no one had a jar with a tap so babushkas would ladle kombucha out of the jar and give it to members of the household to drink.  Perhaps you already have a large jar that lacks a tap, and can just buy a ladle to get the liquid out, in which case this would be even cheaper.  

Another one off cost is the kombucha scoby/culture.  Some people use supermarket kombucha to begin their scoby, this often results in weak scoby with low diversity of microorganisms and needs to be carefully looked after to prevent mould and contaminate issues.  

Perhaps you can find someone who will give you a scoby, or maybe you need to buy one online.  If you need to buy some, it should not be expensive.  Plenty of places online sell them for around $20, even though this is a once off cost, don't pay more than that.  

My little monster in a jar

As mentioned above, I normally make чайный гриб in a large jar that has a tap.  I also make small jar batches as back up cultures in case my large jar breaks or gets knocked over or something.  I sometimes sell kombucha scoby (which is living in the pellicle with some starter tea) through my for sale page.  The scoby I sell is from these smaller batches, it has one (or more) biofilm that is about 10cm across and about a cup of starter liquid.  This is more than enough to make 2 litres of kombucha.  Once you have the scoby/culture you can keep it going indefinitely.  

If you like kombucha, it is well worth making some at home.  Making kombucha at home takes next to no time or effort, and is so easy it is difficult for anything to go wrong.  Given how cheap it is to make at home, even if you need to buy a scoby and a jar it only takes a few liters until you are well and truly ahead financially, plus you have control over the ingredients that are added.  

Mulberry tree

I grow a few different mulberry trees.  For some reason, mulberry trees in Australia tend to be mislabeled more often than not.  

This mulberry tree was meant to be a black mulberry (Morus nigra) but was obvious when it arrived that it was a white mulberry Morus alba (or a hybrid of alba).  The fruit of this tree is meant to be very dark, and the taste is meant to be great, which means it should still be worth growing even though it is not a black mulberry.  

The first year the tree grew well over six feet tall.  This fast growth is a trait of white mulberries, black mulberry are usually slow growing.  I had it growing in a pot of soil, and think it would have grown larger had it been in the ground.  The little tree was strong, and went dormant over winter.

The tree broke dormancy in spring and started to grow.  It had a few berries developing at each leaf node.  Then we were hit with a very late severe frost.  The tree was burned by the frost and lost about 6 feet of growth.  My other, larger more established mulberry trees all lost over 6 feet of growth to that frost.  Needless to say, this little tree did not produce any berries that year. 

The little mulberry tree survived, and grew well, then went dormant over winter.  Now spring is here my little tree is breaking dormancy again.  It has fresh new leaves, and each leaf node looks to be producing several mulberries.

As you can see below, this tree is trying to be rather productive.  

Mulberry breaking dormancy

This tree is covered in developing fruit.  Hopefully this year I get to taste some of them.  

Interestingly, last year my larger more established mulberry trees were loaded in fruit, and were all severely burnt by the late frost.  I worried because my white shahtoot mulberry looked like it had been killed.  It was burnt back to a stump.  I'm happy to say it survived and did a lot of growing last spring/summer, and this year has more developing berries than I have ever seen before. 

White shahtoot mulberry

White shahtoot breaking dormancy

I have said before that a mulberry tree is like a vegetable garden on a trunk.  The berries are delicious, and the leaves are surprisingly nutritious.  

Obviously people can eat mulberry fruits, but not many people in Australia realise you can also eat mulberry leaves.  People can eat mulberry leaves cooked (or raw), they can be used to wrap things, and mulberry leaves make a nice 'tea'.  Basically any animal that eat leaves will eat mulberry leaves.  Mulberry leaves taste ok cooked, and are more nutritious than most common vegetables.  

The leaves from my dark fruited mulberry tree can be huge.  As mulberry tree leaves make great vegetables, producing a lot of large leaves is another great trait to have.  

Mulberry is a great leaf vegetable

At the moment I am growing this tree in a pot.  I planned to grow it in a pot for the first year or so and then put it in the garden.  I should have planted it into the soil this past winter or the one before, but I didn't, and now it will have to wait until next winter.  

You can see below that the pot also has miner's lettuce (Claytonia perfoliata) growing in it.  I didn't plant the miner's lettuce, but some seed got in somehow, and I encouraged it to grow.  This annual vegetable germinates in winter, grows until the weather gets hot, then sets seed and dies.  The miner's lettuce in the pot acts as a living mulch, weed seeds do not germinate as it is too thick.  

I like the taste of miner's lettuce, and I like how it self seeds and reappears each year for me.  Saving seed of miner's lettuce is fiddly, so I find it easier to grow some miner's lettuce in a pot, and when it seeds I move the pot to where I want this plant to grow the following year.  Inevitably some seed falls from the pot, and I have a new patch of miner's lettuce the following winter.  It's kind of the lazy way to save seed.

Sometimes miner's lettuce appears in the lawn, but doesn't grow large enough to eat as it keeps getting mown.  It still flowers and sets seed in the lawn, this seed gets washed around in rains or moved by wind, then the following winter seedlings pop up in new places.  I wish I had more of this growing, and am always sad when it succumbs to the heat and dies off for the season. 

Mulberry tree growing in a pot of soil

Miner's lettuce flowering

While I was originally disappointed that this tree was not a black mulberry (Morus nigra), and it appears to be a dark fruited white mulberry (Morus alba), it is still a good tree.  It is showing strong growth even when conditions are not great, it looks to be rather productive, and it has abundant large leaves.  Hopefully it has the classic mulberry taste as there is no point growing it if the berries don't taste great.  Normally mulberries begin to ripen around December/January here, so unless something goes wrong I will hopefully be able to eat some soon.

I may try to grow some from cuttings and see how readily they root.  If the fruit is good, and if this one is easy to propagate, I may build up numbers and share around some of the plants.  If that happens I may list them on my for sale page.  

Perennial vegetables for sale October 2025

For sale in Australia perennial vegetables, heirloom vegetable seeds, edible herbs, organic berry plants, and a few non-edible plants and things.  Everything has been grown organically by me.  

Maintaining my old for sale page wasn't working for me, so each month I will write a new blog post with an updated list of what I have for sale that month and include a link on my old for sale page. 

Various organic tomatoes

For Sale: October 2025 

Bare Rooted Plants $5 each (unless otherwise stated): 

Skirret offsets 
Everlasting onions 
Babington leek 
Pineberry strawberry 
Virginian strawberry
Atilla alpine strawberry 
Jekkas thyme 
Spearmint 
100 yr old mint
Lavender mint 
Willow herb
Vietnamese fish mint
Vietnamese coriander
Variegated water parsley
Green water parsley (more vigorous stronger tasting version of the variegated form)
Asparagus (Variety: Purple) 
Asparagus (Variety: Precoce D'Argenteuil) 
Sweet Violet 
Water cress - well rooted cuttings
Hops (Variety: Target)
Brahmi/water hyssop (Bacopa monnieri) 
Tiger nut/chufas (Cyperus esculentus) $5 for 5 tubers
Jerusalem artichoke tubers $3 each
Duck potato $3 each
Chinese water chestnuts $3 
Spider plant (variegated, green, or reverse variegated)  $3 each
Azolla  ($3 per scoop)  

Ancient Cultures: 

Milk kefir grains  $5 

Heirloom Vegetable Seeds:  $4 packet (unless otherwise stated) 

Immali corn
Superior coriander
Giant parsley
Purple hot mustard
Purple asparagus
Tomato Zolotoe Serdtse
Tomato Tommy Toe
Tomato Reisetoimate 
Tomato Woolly Kate 
Senposai
Huacatay

Non edible things:

Aloe vera $5
String of pearls succulent - plant $5, cuttings $2
String of beans succulent (from Coober Pedy) - plant $5, cuttings  $2
Red jelly bean succulent  $5 
African violet leaf cutting (Variety: New Hampshire) $3 each
African violet leaf cutting (Variety: unnamed double light blue) $3 each

Candle mold 'skep' $10 each
Candle mold 'owl' $10 each 

Postage Prices: 

$12 for plants etc, or 
$3.50 if only buying seeds.  

I post the Monday after payment has cleared.

Jerusalem artichoke tubers

To order anything from the above list: 

Please send me an email saying what plants/seeds you would like and I will reply with prices/payment methods.  My email address will need to remove the the spaces, put @ instead of the word 'at' and . in place of the word 'dot': 

damien_beaumont at yahoo dot com dot au 

Photographs, binomial names, and descriptions of plants, and notes on how I grow them, can be found on my old for sale page.  Please note my old page has a lot of things not currently in season/not currently for sale.  The only things I have for sale this month are listed in this blog post above. 

Ginkgo tree 'flowering'

I love Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) trees, there is something miraculous about them.  

My neighbours went away and asked my kids to look after their cat while they are gone.  They have a ginkgo tree which I like to look at when ever I go over there.  This is a male ginkgo tree.  

It is breaking dormancy and producing cute little ginkgo leaves as well as small catkin like things that will produce pollen (that's how I can tell it is a male tree).  

Male ginkgo tree breaking dormancy

Ginkgo trees are pretty amazing.  This ginkgo tree is relatively young.  I am told it takes upwards of 20 years for them to 'flower'.  This tree may be 20+ years old, or it may be an older tree grafted onto a younger rootstock.  People tend to want male ginkgo trees because the fruit can smell bad. 

Ginkgo trees live for a very long time, some are documented to be alive over 1,400 years old and the largest ginkgo are estimated to be over 3,500 years old.  The trees almost seem to melt as they get really old, yet paradoxically the tree does not appear to show any cell degeneration / senescence as they age.  Some have survived atomic bombings (I almost got a seed from one of these trees, but missed out) with minimal damage.  

Some individual ginkgo trees are male, while others are female.  They produce seeds, yet are not flowering plants.  I would mention the pollen, as it is unique among plants and rather fascinating, but decided not to as the topic is a bit gross.  

Ginkgo biloba breaking dormancy

Ginkgo with catkin like structures

Ginkgo catkins can be relatively long

In autumn ginkgo trees drop leaves almost all at once, it is incredible to watch as 80% of the leaves fall while I am standing there.  The colour in the growing season is green while autumn colour is a golden yellow, if you dry an autumn leaf it stays yellow, and if you dry a growing leaf it stays green.  As well as that, these plants are heterophyllous, meaning they produce two different types of leaves.

Ginkgo produce a seed inside what looks like fruit, but is actually the fleshy layer of the seed.  This fleshy part smells pretty bad and can cause contact dermatitis.  The embryo develops inside the seed, either before or after it falls from the tree, so you can't know if a seed is successfully 'pollinated' until you plant it or crack it open.  

Ginkgo seeds are edible, nutritious, and taste pretty good.  People used to carry bags of seed to eat on their journeys (you will see why this point is important lower down this page).  

Young ginkgo tree

Ginkgo

If all of that wasn't interesting enough, Ginkgo once had numerous species, all but one are now extinct.  Ginkgo biloba is described as a 'living fossil' or a 'Lazarus species'.  

Interestingly, Ginkgo was rather abundant in fossils, and it disappeared from the fossil record in the Pliocene era.  Given that these trees can survive to be well over 1,000 years old, these trees are alive today, these shed pollen to the wind, and being deciduous they drop many leaves each year, it is remarkable how it is absent in the more recent fossil record.  Ginkgo biloba was thought to be extinct until some trees were found growing near temples.  

Ginkgo was also thought to be extinct in the wild until the early 1900s when a few populations were discovered in China.  It is now thought that these wild populations are not from wild grown populations, but are from seeds that were carried by people who were planning on eating them, which means these are more like garden escapees rather than remnant wild populations.  

Ginkgo leaves look like little duck feet

Ginkgo is unique and bizarre in so many ways.  Mostly I love the looks of the leaves.  They are shaped like cute little duck feet, and are similar in shape to pinnules of maidenhair ferns.  

The only things I dislike about ginkgo trees, is how slowly they grow and how difficult I find to propagate them.  They probably can grow fast under the right conditions, but under normal conditions they tend to grow slowly.

I will probably never sell ginkgo trees.  I find them difficult to propagate using cuttings.  This is unfortunate because I would love to grow dozens of ginkgo trees for sale each year, but this won't happen unless something changes and I work out how to reliably grow them from cuttings.

Persimmon Hira tanenashi

I love persimmons, but they are crazy expensive.  Most years I can't justify the price of buying a persimmon to eat. 

I have been told that persimmon trees are simple to grow, and I have been told they are very productive.  To hopefully be able to eat persimmons each year (or at least most years) I bought a persimmon tree (Diospyros kaki), it is a variety called "Hira tanenashi".  This variety is said to be one of the best tasting astringent persimmon varieties.  

Persimmons

My little tree was posted to me.  It arrived in the growing season, and was in leaf.  The first year I planted it in a pot so I could care for it and protect it a little.  

As far as I could see it did no growth that first year.  It didn't grow at all, not a single extra leaf, and once the cooler weather came it changed colour, dropped its leaves, and went dormant.  I was a little worried, but hoped all was well.  Presumably it was doing things under the soil.  

Late that winter, while the plant was dormant, I planted my persimmon tree into the yard where it will live out the rest of its life.  

Persimmon tree in a pot

In spring my persimmon broke dormancy and grew, then stopped growing.  This was a good sign.  Then it began to grow some more.  

The second flush of new growth had some flower buds.  I am told the first flowers tend to abort.  The fact that it grew at all was enough to allay any concerns I had.  The fact that it had flower buds was very positive. 

Persimmon flower bud

Flower buds produced in leaf axil on new growth

The flower buds were lovely and fat, meaning the tree is not a male and should be capable of producing fruit.  I paid a lot of money for a parthenocarpic variety, but have received incorrectly labelled plants in the past, so seeing the fat female flowers was a relief. 

The buds opened into flowers with yellowish petals and a very slight fragrance.  I am told persimmon flowers are unremarkable, but I find them beautiful in their own way.  

The persimmon flowers all had some tiny ants crawl in and take their nectar.  If you look closely you may see them in the photos below. 

I am told the first year that persimmons flower it is common for the flowers to all abort and not set fruit.  Even so, I was happy to see that it can flower for me and that the flowers are female.  I was happy with this.  

Persimmon flowers

Persimmon flowers and tiny ants

This is a parthenocarpic persimmon variety, and can set seedless fruit even when not pollinated.  This is a good thing and means the tree should set good amounts of seedless fruit when it is larger and more established.  

All of the flowers eventually dropped their petals, and they all started to swell.  This indicated that perhaps the fruit had set, and some may not abort.  

At this stage I was very excited, and checked on the developing fruit each day even though I knew it would be a long time before the fruit could be ripe. 

Persimmon fruits starting to swell

Persimmon flower petals dropping and fruit forming

The fruits grew but stayed very small.  One day one of these green fruits fell off.  I put it on the bench to see if it was mature enough to ripen, but sadly it was not.  That one never gained colour, and it slowly rotted. 

Weeks later some of the fruit started to get a little colour.  They were still very small, but they are the first fruit from a small tree, and the season was dry, so they may just produce tiny fruit this year and will have larger fruit next year.  

This is an Asian persimmon, and this variety is meant to produce medium to large size fruits.  Considering the price I paid for this tree, I hope it was not mislabeled.  Only time will tell. 

Persimmon fruits starting to get colour

Persimmons starting to get colour

Getting colour but still so small

April 7, the day after the above photos were taken, the persimmon fruit with the most colour dropped from the tree.  It was slightly soft, but certainly not ripe.  Being an astringent variety means it can not be eaten at that stage.  Astringent persimmons must be very soft and ripe before you can eat them.  I like this because it means the birds tend not to steal the fruits before they are ripe.

I brought this unripe persimmon inside and put it on a bench to allow it to ripen fully before eating.  Over time it got softer, gained some more colour, and ripened a little.  It tasted good, but not great.  At this stage I was hoping the lack of flavour was due to not spending enough time on the tree ripening.

The other fruits stayed on the tree another 2 or 3 months.  Being on the tree for longer meant they could ripen properly and taste a lot nicer.  

Persimmon autumn colours

As it turned out, the fruit needed a lot longer on the tree to taste good.  The photos above were taken early June, two months after the first fruit fell from the tree.  

The fruits were still not ripe yet, but were getting a lot more colour, and were slightly larger.  The tree was changing colour and starting to lose its leaves for winter, persimmon autumn leaf colouration is incredible.  Persimmons can be very attractive trees.   

You may notice another plant growing with my persimmon.  This other plant is huacatay.  This one self seeded, and I let it grow so it could help protect my young persimmon from strong winds.  Huacatay is an annual herb that smells and tastes like mint, and it can grow over 10 feet tall.  I didn't want it to grow too tall so had been cutting it back.  Once frosts hit this plant dies and I cut it down and use it as mulch. 

Ripe Hira tanenashi persimmon

We left the persimmons on the tree to ripen, and we eventually ate the remaining persimmons after they turned soft.  The extra time ripening on the tree was needed.  The little persimmons tasted great raw, and were incredible on ice cream.  

The persimmon fruits were small this year.  I am not sure if that is because the tree is young, or if the year was too dry, or if they will always be small.  This is the first year it has produced fruit, so there weren't many of them.  Hopefully each subsequent year will yield larger numbers of fruit, and hopefully the fruits will be a bit larger. 

The tree went dormant for winter, so I surrounded it with a ring of waste from the chicken's deep litter.  This will slowly fertilise the tree, act as mulch, and funnel summer rain and dew to the base of the tree.  It is early spring now, and my persimmon tree is showing no signs of growth.  In my garden, persimmons break dormancy rather late.  This is good because they miss any late frosts that could damage them, but is kind of worrying as I always fear my little tree may have died over winter.  

Mostly because I won't remember this I am going to record it here.  My little persimmon tree flowered late January, and the fruit was fully ripe June/July as the tree was losing its leaves for the winter.  

Sweet violet - Viola odorata

Sweet violets, Viola odorata, are small and simple to grow plants.  They have a heap of common names, and there is a lot of confusion over their binomial name as they can and do hybridise with other viola species.

Sweet violet flowers come in various colours, some white, some pink, but most commonly they are a 'violet' colour.  The flowers are scented, and I think they smell nice.  

When I was younger we had a variety with a dark violet flower, and another less common one with a white flower, and they both had a strong scent.  The sweet violet we have at the moment only has a light fragrance, and it smells lovely.  

Sweet Violets Flowering

While many sources online speak of sweet violets as 'heart shaped leaves' I would not describe them this way.  To me sweet violet leaves look more 'kidney shaped' than heart shaped. 

I have several other plants that do have heart shaped leaves, including buckwheat and a succulent called variegated string of hearts.  

Sweet violet leaves - don't look heart shaped

Heart shaped leaf of golden buckwheat

Chain of hearts has heart shaped leaf

Despite having similar common names, African violets are not related to true violets.  

True violets and African violets can have similar coloured flowers, and even similar shaped flowers, but that is about where the similarity ends.  

They are different Genus and species, the leaves are different, the fruits and seeds are very different, and the plants need vastly different growing conditions.  

True violets are in the Genus Viola.  There are many Viola species, most of which hybridise readily.  Plants such as Johnny jump up/heartsease, and pansy, are species or hybrids of violets.

Violets cope with a wide range of climates and soils.  Mine survive heavy frosts, as well as scorching heat.  Once established they can survive reasonably dry conditions, but they perform far better when given ample water.

African violets - not related to true violets

The unnamed sweet violet I grow at the moment doesn't have the strongest scent, but it is a real survivor.  

Years ago I found some violets growing in a dry sclerophyll forest under a large Eucalyptus tree.  Presumably this was a garden escape, and there was a little patch of them that were surviving some rather dry conditions with a lot of competition from native grasses.  

I dug up a plant and bought it home.  A little while after I brought a plant home, the original patch was sprayed, and the patch was killed.  

Violet fruit pod

You can see the seeds in the violet fruit

I put this violet plant in a pot, where it survived and flowered.  It produced little fruits, I picked them and threw them around the yard where I thought violets may survive.  

One summer was too hot and dry, I didn't have enough water to give the garden and my potted violet plant died.  This wasn't a problem because some of the fruits that I spread around dropped seed in the right places, and a few little patches of violets grew.  

Some patches grew, then died as it was too hot and dry.  The violet patch that survived the best is on the south (shaded) side of my raised vegetable garden.  It gets some shade, as well as some water and nutrients from the raised bed.  

Sweet violets growing near vegetable garden

The violets grow in the semi-shade of my raised beds, I also gave them a little extra water from time to time.  Sometimes I mow them, or occasionally weed them, but mostly I leave them to do their thing.  

As you can see, the violets created a thick carpet.  This is mostly weed free as grass and things have trouble growing under such dense shade.  

Sweet violet leaves

Sweet violets, having 'odorata' in their binominal name, are strangely not the most fragrant species of violet.  Often the Viola alba has the strongest scent.  Alba means white, which is also rather confusing is as V alba most often has violet coloured flowers rather than white.  

Violets were used in perfumes for some time.  V alba was used to breed a few types of parma violets.  These have a strong scent, and often double flowers.  Strangely it was not the flowers that were used to make perfume, but the leaves.  The flowers were used in bouquets and things, and these did smell strongly of violets, but it is the leaves that were used to make violet scented perfume.  Don't ask me how they extracted fragrance from the leaves, I still don't know how they did that.

Violet flowers, leaves, and all other parts, are edible.  They are high in vitamin C, and from what I read they contain a lot of other vitamins as well as other healthy substances including rutin (great for your heart) and salicylic acid (similar to aspirin).

Violets have a heap of medicinal benefits, but I am not sure how violets are best prepared to get these benefits.  I have heard people make tea from the leaves, others use the leaves in salads.  I assume eating raw would give you the greatest benefit as heat sensitive compounds such as Vitamin C would not be degraded.  I have also heard of poultices and the like being made containing violet leaves, but again I don't know much about how this is done.  

When eaten raw, I find the taste of violet leaf to be unimpressive, but not horrible.  Cooking doesn't seem make it taste worse, or better.  I find the taste of violet flowers to be similar to the leaf.  Not incredible, but not dreadful.   

This year we had months of below average rainfall.  Most of our lawn died back.  The violet patch was still green and productive.  We have a few guinea pigs, I tend to feed them mostly broad leaf weeds and grass, and supplement with pellets as little as possible.  When the grass/weeds run low I have been feeding them violet leaves.  While certainly not our guinea pigs' favourite food, feeding violet leaves is better than just feeding pellets.  

I was also feeding these violet leaves to our chickens when the grass died.  They don't love it, but will eat it, and having some greens in their diet is better than nothing.  The violets are always pretty productive as I can pick these plants very hard and they bounce back quickly.

These sweet violets may not have the strongest fragrance, but they are survivors.  They are perennial, and they produce viable seed.  If you would like to grow them I sell bare rooted violets through my for sale page.