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This tiny herb is an universal favourite, be it as an ingredient of cuisine or medicine. Incidentally, India is a leading producer of the plant and its products. Pudina has myriad uses and can be effective as an expectorant, a digestive stimulant, against asthma, tonsillitis, and joint pains too.

Pudina leaves also can cool the body besides serving as a mouth freshener, so it makes sense to add a sprig of pudina leaves or pudina extracts to drinking water or fruit juices, besides incorporating fresh pudina leaves to make tasty chutneys or thogaiyals during this blazing summer. Here is how you can raise your own fresh supply of pudina.

Fresh pudina or mint plants can be grown easily at home, even from a pot placed on the window sill. The plant grows well in the soil mixture of one part sand, one part red earth and one part manure, but make sure that the drainage is adequate. A litre of water everyday will suffice, and the plant needs exposure to bright sunlight for at least six hours every day to reach its maximum potency.

You can raise pudina plants from seedlings or from the mint sprigs sold by your local vegetable vendor. They take root easily. Grow a few seedlings in each pot, and branches with leaves may be harvested as and when required.

HEMA VIJAY

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