Okay, to be more positive, it's more like one step forward, one step back.
Despite the fact that when one plants mint in the garden, and one is warned that the mint must be contained or it will spread and choke out all other plantings, I've not found this to be true.
But when I first started growing mint, I was cautious and dedicated one 8' x 4' raised bed to the mint.
For some reason I can't understand, each spring I find bare spots in the bed. So I purchase three or four more mint plants from a greenhouse to "fill in." The plants, whether the old or new ones, never seem to spread and totally fill in the bed. Nope, it's never looked as though my mint will go crazy and take over our acreage.
With the growing season well underway this year, you can see the bare spots in my mint bed.
This is disturbing because I need to grow a lot of mint since each year I dry and use a great quantity of it. Papa Pea has a large cup of mint tea every morning after a cup of coffee. Plus, our daughter has a friend with a lot of tummy troubles and she's found drinking our mint tea helps her digestion like no other mint she's found. So it's important to me to grow as much of it as I can.
To this end, this year I decided to put in a second bed of mint. But this spring I couldn't find any peppermint plants (which is the kind of mint I want) in any of our nearby greenhouses. Friends were going to visit relatives down state, knew of a large greenhouse there and said they would look for peppermint plants for me.
I was very appreciative when they brought me twelve very healthy looking plants which I put in a vacant raised bed.
The plants took hold nicely and have already started to send out shoots to fill the spaces between the plants.
However, there's a problem with this new mint.
Does it look like peppermint? Yes. Does it smell like peppermint? No. Does it taste like peppermint? No. It has very little aroma or flavor. And what it does have, doesn't resemble peppermint. Or any other kind of mint. It's a mystery.
Today I pulled out all the new plants. They had very healthy root systems (I had to use a shovel to loosen them from the soil) that were probably at least 12" across.
So perhaps I am back to the one step forward, two steps back. I'll now have to wait another year to start my second peppermint bed in order to make sure I can harvest and dehydrate as much mint as I want.
It's not a terrible, awful, bad predicament to have when other gardeners are experiencing severe drought or too much moisture or a serious invasion of insects as is one gardener in our area who has lost about 80% of her garden to grasshoppers.
I've thought about starting my own peppermint plants from seeds. But even at that, I won't know if the plant leaves smell or taste like peppermint until they're big enough to show their true colors. Best I plan on a determined search of greenhouses within a 200 mile radius next spring giving the old sniff test and maybe even surreptitiously munching a leaf or two. Just to be sure.
15 comments:
can you start them from pieces of roots of the plants in your existing bed?
Tigger - A very good suggestion! I have no knowledge of how to do so, but I'll look for information on that. Thanks.
I have not found mint to be aggressive either. I think most people's idea of "aggressive" matches my idea of "thrifty". I have a few things that give me trouble in an amazingly frustrating way, but I think it is a very micro-climate specific issue. Your solution of grazing a 200 mile radius is an amusing picture, and exactly what I would do.
I grow my mint in largish (2 ft diameter) pots rather than an 8x8 bed and I noticed that they seemed to come back more patchy every year. A friend told me that the root system has filled in my pots and it didn't have any room for growth because it only puts new growth above ground where they have new roots below. What I do now is early every spring, I pop the plants out of the pot and hack the entire plant down to about 1/4 the size. Then I put it back in the pot with fresh soil and it fills out and bushes so wonderfully all summer. I have 5 different varieties of mint and I never got around to thinning the spearmint one this year and it shows. The rest are knee high and so thick you can't see the soil under them. The spearmint one is short, patchy, and more stem than leaf. If your empty areas are full of last years roots and dead growth under the soil, then you might have the same issue and the roots need to be thinned out.
In order to get new plants, I just put the hacked off bits of mint plant into a new pot and within a week they are growing well and I try to find homes for them (it's getting hard as all my friends now have mint plants). I find mint to be *really* easy to propagate. I've accidently left a bit of root without any greenery attached on a gravel path where I was doing the thinning and now I have chocolate mint trying to take over the path.
This spring I snipped off a few pieces of my peppermint plant (about 6" each)and, after pulling off the lower leaves, stuck in a jar of water. In a couple weeks there were little roots on them so I replanted. By June I was able to start clipping and drying some of the leaves off the new plants. Hope you are able to get some new starts going! Isn't gardening fun!!! Thank you for your blog. Marilyn in SW Missouri
That's odd - mint that doesn't smell like mint. That's like a peony that I have. It has no scent at all. What's the point? -Jenn
I've had luck taking cuttings like Marilyn (above) does. At our previous residence, I had mint in pots, and yes, it got really root bound. I pretty much did what Angela (above) does, dumping out the pots and cutting the root ball with a sharp spade and replanting the pieces. It did well. I had trouble keeping it confined to the pots!
The non-aromatic mint is sure a mystery? Good luck with your grazing journey!!
That photo of your new mint, looks a lot like catnip, which does have a great smell . Catnip does make a great tea, but not of my liking. We grow it of course, for the cat treats! As far as one step forward and two stops back...known as the homestead shuffle! It’s a great dance this time of year !
SmartAlex - I now know it's absurd, but when I first started my mint bed I had visions of it overflowing the 8' x 4' raised bed and grabbing me by the ankles as I walked by. Ha! If only.
Angela - Excellent instructions on what I can try with my mint bed. And I'm so encouraged in that it does seem that mint is easy to divide and propagate. I especially value your information because you've been hands-on and done it! Thank you!
Marilyn - I'm going to try your method of propagation, too! I wonder if I can do the root sprouting in water, then planting and get it to grow yet this summer? Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Thanks for your info, too!
Jenn - Yep, this new "mint" was really strange. My daughter walked through when I was dehydrating a batch of the odorless, tasteless stuff and she commented that it even smelled "funny" (not nice) as it was drying. :o\
Rosalea - It's good to hear your experience, too. I have a jar saved of the "new" mint I already dehydrated, but I'm thinking I'm going to dump it. Even though the tags in the started pots definitely said "Peppermint" now I'm wondering if it could have been (maybe possibly?) some other plant that looks just like mint. And would it do anyone harm to make tea out of it and consume it? Yikes. To the compost heap it's going!
wyomingheart - Crikey! I wonder if it could have been catnip?? Now I know I'm tossing the half jar I dehydrated! I had never heard of the one step forward, two steps back referred to as the homestead shuffle. (But so true!) I'm gonna have to remember that! :o)
I hope someone videos you sneaking around tasting Peppermint leaves at various places. I'm sure it would be noteworthy and enjoyable watching ;} My mint has always taken over wherever it has been planted. Maybe the zone difference? is the issue?
I've even lost my mint in one year! I have a very poor soil, but still ... So no, I don't consider it invasive either.
Testing. Having trouble getting my comments to appear. :o(
Lisa B - If captured on video, I'd probably get arrested. So YOU'RE one of those who says mint will take over the garden, huh? Hrumpf. ;o)
cristina - Atta girl! You've vindicated my lack of success with mint. ;o)
I've smell-tested plants at the greenhouse or stores, especially on some of the ones I'm not familiar with. I never thought to test my peppermint purchases the last few years though. I did check it after reading of yours that had no smell or taste. Yay, it smells and tastes right, not really strong, but is pepperminty. I don't think those new plants look like cat nip, perhaps catmint (yes, they are separate plants). Catnip definitely has a smell and taste, and is very good at spreading from seed. To me the new plants looked like spearmint with more upright habit, not as strong smell or flavor as peppermint, and yes it does smell and taste like the gum. My mints are in pots, and frequently do not return the next year, wish I knew why, maybe I need to bury the pots in winter.
If you do start new plants from your mint, I too suggest doing it from cuttings, especially since what you have is a very good one. One thing I remember from my more serious garden reading of past years is that mints from seed can be highly variable.
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