If you love herbal teas, as I do, you know they are just a little bit pricey. However, growing your own herbs is easy and so much fun!

Here are just a few of herbs you might want to consider for a tea garden:

Chamomile: Remember favorite tea of Peter Rabbit? Only flowers of this fragrant herb are used when making tea. Chamomile tea can be enjoyed by itself or you might enjoy adding mint or lemon verbena.

Lemon Balm: This herb is lemony with a touch of mint and makes a soothing cup of tea. It's easy to grow (almost too easy) so remember to keep it clipped back.

Lemon Verbena: An excellent herb to grow in a sunny spot, it makes a delicious tea. You might try combining it with orange mint or spearmint.

Mints: There are many mints available. Generally, they are aromatic plants and they are aggressive. It may be a good idea to plant mint in a pot and then put pot in ground so it doesn't take over your herb garden. Spearmint, peppermint, orange mint all make wonderful teas, alone or along with chamomile or any of lemon herbs.

This tutorial assumes that you know how to safely operate your power tools. Always refer to manufacturer instructions if you are unsure how to use your tools.

Any wood worker needs to take a board from lumber yard or their local sawyer and make this board a uniform thickness, length and width. This board needs to have all four edges square to each other. This is referred to a milling a board four square and is a pre-requisite to any wood working project.

This is best accomplished by using a jointer, thickness planer, miter and circular saws and a table saw. In this example we will mill a board 30" x 4-1/2" x 5/8" with all for edges square to each other.

Step 1: Rough cut your stock

Rough cut your stock to 30-3/4" x 4-3/4" and maintain same overall thickness. Start by selecting a piece of stock larger then your finished size (obviously) and use a framing square to square off one end of board. Be sure end isn't checked (cracked) and if it is square board off just beyond where cracks end.

Make cut using a circular saw being careful to make a fairly square cut. Now measure 30-3/4" and square off board using your framing square make second cut same way you made first. Be careful to cut on waste side of line.

Step 2: Rip to rough width

The table saw is best tool for this cut. Set rip fence so it is 4-3/4" from blade and set height of blade so gullet of teeth is same height as stock. Following directions included with your table saw start blade and make cut, being sure to use a push stick.

Step 3: Truing one face

Now that your piece of stock is rough size needed it is time to true up one face. This is best accomplished with jointer.

As always with jointer it is advisable now to take more than 1/16" per pass. Taking more wood per pass will overwork machine and give results that are less than optimal.