Stevia Rebaudiana

I have been so excited to learn more about Stevia since I learned that we can grow it here in Utah. As I was thinking about where I should plant it in my garden. I started wondering if there were different species of it that I needed to be aware of, like ones that were not edible, or if there were different varieties or flavors—like the different flavors of thyme or basil you can get. I was also wondering about what kinds of things the plant needed like: sunlight, water, fertilizer, acid or alkaline soil etc.

Here is a good website that I found, conveniently called Stevia.com : )

It says that, "Stevia Rebaudiana is an herb in the Chrysanthemum family which grows wild as a small shrub in parts of Paraguay and Brazil. The glycosides in its leaves...[make] it unique among the nearly 300 species of Stevia plants."

Okay, nearly 300 species. Good to know that!

Here is a site that gives some basics about how to grow Stevia and harvest it.

This link explains about different ways we can use Stevia.

Like any other herb there are possible side effects. Here are some sites that address both pros, cons and safety.

• Cooking with Stevia.com
• WebMD—Stevia
• Righthealth.com