Growing mint.
To: herbs.teleport.com
Subject: Re: Mint
From: Sheila Foster <foster.engr.csulb.edu
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 1996 12:12:22 -0800 (PST)
I planted mint last summer. On the advice of the nursery, we made rings with an edging material and pushed it in the ground around the plants. The theory is that the mint spreads with surface roots - not by the deep roots. Don't know yet if it works. We also have very dry and hot summers so may not have the same problems as others.
From: Stone_Haus_Farm.prodigy.com (MRS PAT E SWEETMAN)
Well I was going to be but read the lates 5 messages that came in and decided to pass on my experience with mint. Some mints are top round rooter, but not all of them. The best way you can keep mint from spreading is to sink on of the big plastic (5 gallon) black nursery pots in the ground withjust about 2 inches showing. The plastic pot is great for a few reasons...
- it is lightweight to use.
- the black won't show in the garden too much.
- It won't crack like tera cotta.
- the drainage holes are "way in the bottom. These allow water drainage but it takes a few years for the roots to get down there to escape and invade.
Mint was the first medicinal ever used...it is like cockroaches...they will bothe be here long after we have all left this earth. But is is containable to a good degree. But if you don't want a long lasting relationship with it, don't grow it..don't even look at it. Some mint likes damp soils and some like it dry..but all mint is pretty adaptable. Altho' they don't do well when you bring them inside for the winter..in areas where we have winter. They will probably live but get reall "ratty" looking. Let's see..the last time I looked there were about 135 types of mint, but it hybidizes itself so that in the last two years, there are probably a lot more by now.
I went to a mint workshop with Art Tucker as the speaker...wow did learn a lot. If anybody gets a chance to ever hear him, he is worth it. He's a little technical and probably not for the novice, but the more we learn the less of a novice we are...right?
Umm, peppermint ...you CANNOT buy seeds of peppermint. Altho' I have seen "them" in KMart.
I belong to 3 herb clubs and this way of planting I related to you is THE WAY to plant mint. I have found that nurseries don't always know what they are talking about...herbs are big now and they want to be on the bandwagon.
From: Jenny Evans <JENNYE.nait.ab.ca
>rings with an edging material and pushed it in the ground around the plants.
I have had mint wander under a concrete patio about 4 inches deep and pop up at the other side several feet away. My mints (2 varieties) are in plastic patio planters, sunk in the ground so just the top edge is above ground, and with lots of holes cut in the bottom for drainage. :-)
From: MettaSong.aol.com
Greetings all, I planted one group of mint in the grandchildrens old blue swiming pool. I surround the outside with dirt, and planted flowering annuals, sort of like a raised garden with sloping sides. I'm always having to rearange the roots back into the pool, they keep wanting to escape into the flower bed on the outside. Grandma MettaSong
