An interesting article in our local Oban Times last week listed many of the tea plantations currently operating in Scotland – everything from The Wee Tea Company with 14,000 plants growing on high ground – formerly a sheep farm near Dunkeld – to a new plantation with 500 bushes planted at sea level recently on our fellow Lorn Island of Lismore.
There are also small operations in Invernesshire – Peebles – Orkney – the Isle of Arran and our nearby Isle of Mull. If their reporter – Sandy Neil -had looked over the wall above Fladda Cottages here on the Isle of Luing he might have seen OUR mini-plantation where Helen and I have six healthy plants of the green tea producing Camelia Sinensis variety growing happily in our south sloping garden despite their recent exposure to several degrees of frost —
The Lismore growers find their biggest challenge is to fend off the legions of voles which burrow through the roots of the plants. Voles shouldn’t be a problem here as our Seamus does a great job of keeping them and their sort in order – no —
Our public enemy No.1 is the roe deer – they just love to munch on tasty fresh green tea leaves —
Yup – here she is – early in the morning outside our bathroom window casing the joint – hence the security detail of Daleks which did a great job of protecting our young fruit trees in 2017 – this year they are on Camelia Sinensis patrol —
Oh yes – what of the Nepalese Prayer Flags – just a personal touch to make our Himalayan tea plants feel more at home 🙂