When you think of tea, one of the last places you might think you could grow and make your own tea is Canada. This week, Matthew Dressing kicks off authors' month with his co-host, and Down the Garden Path serial guest superstar, Julia Dimakos. Julia graciously steps into Joanne Shaw's seat for the week to discuss her new book, Tea Gardening for Beginners.

About Julia Dimakos

Julia gardens in 7000 square feet in Mono, Ontario, continuing in the formal kitchen garden style. She has been growing vegetables and writing about gardening for over 12 years and has been published in Canadian Organic Grower magazine twice. She has just released her new book, Tea Gardening for Beginners.

She loves to inspire others to have their own vegetable gardens by showing them the simpler side of gardening. She enjoys teaching others, speaking, and holding workshops. You can read her blog at www.juliadimakos.com.

Learn how easy it is to grow, harvest, and prepare your own tea at home to create the perfect cup of tea.

Here are some of the questions and topics covered in this episode:

• Tell us about your garden this summer.
  • What did you grow?
  • What challenges did you face?
  • What was new and exciting?
• Tea gardening. What is it?
• When I think of tea, maybe like most, we think of tea leaves, but teas can be made from so much more than just leaves.
  • How does one go about making a "tea" with leaves, flowers, fruits and seeds, and roots? Describe each.
  • Can you make tea with any part of the plant? If it's good to use the leaves, is it perfectly fine to use the roots, for example?
• In your book, you have some delicious tea recipes.
  • How does one come up with a tea recipe? Can you simply combine teas to create your own blends?
  • Can you share with us any tips and tricks we should use to make the best teas?

You can find Julia online here, as well as on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest.

You can buy her new book, Tea Gardening for Beginners, here.

You can also listen to past Down the Garden Path podcasts featuring Julia:

Growing Herbs

Growing Under Lights

Digging Deep with Veggies

Growing Indoors

Autumn Edibles

Down the Garden Path Podcast

Each week on Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes.

As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade. A horticulturist and landscape designer, Matthew Dressing owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, they do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In their new book, Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and Matthew distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. It's now available on Amazon.