Stevia propogation

The stevia herb has fascinated me this year and I found a wonderful plant at the farmers market. My pops was diabetic and I've always studied alternatives to sugar. It appears this simple herb stevia could be the answer to a lot of the worlds obesity and health issues related to sugar consumption. I would be so happy to eliminate the high fructose corn syrup that is in most everything I buy, from ketchup to salad dressing. From my young stevia plant, I clipped a few three-inch long shoots. Using a razor blade, I cut a slit in the stem near the lowest leaf node pair about an inch long. Then I pulled out my PotterFactory newspaper pot making tool, it came in really handy. In a minute, I had whipped up three newspaper pots filled with seed starter mix. In the center of the soil in the newspaper pot, using a pencil - I poked a hole down thru the soil and just dropped the cutting down into the hole with the top leaves above the soil. Push the soil around the cutting and set the sweet little things in a plastic tray from which you can bottom water. I poured a little water in the tray everyday keeping the pots moist - the newspaper pots bottom-water so nicely. In about a week I noticed some small little roots poking through the bottom of the pots, so today I transplanted then into a large pot with some rich compost. My one stevia bush has now become three bushes and I'm looking forward to drying some of the leaves for use over the winter. I'm starting to use stevia frequently, I really like to crush a couple of leaves into a glass of iced tea, it removes the slight tea bitterness. Although the Food and Drug Administration refuses to label stevia as a sweetener, and as long as corporate sugar growers finance politicians, we will continue to see only sugar and HFCS used as sweeteners but we can avoid using them and now grow our own. If you do not have stevia, go out today and get a plant and get one growing, don't put it off. As the wise old horticulturalist once said, "... there are two good times to plant something you like, one is twenty years ago, and the other is today."