Perpetual Peppermint

I am in LOVE with Peppermint...

Last spring I planted 2 little peppermint plants. I had wanted to do it the previous year, but by the time I thought of it there weren’t any plants left in the garden shop. So I settled for apple mint instead. The apple mint, while it is certainly interesting, wasn’t exactly what I had hoped for. So as soon as spring was near (last season) I made a specific effort to find peppermint as soon as they were available for sale.

I bought and planted 2, just in case; I think they cost around $3 each. I knew pretty much nothing about mint, or growing mint, or even cooking with mint…it just sounded neat. I plunged right in and gave it a try.

Lots of advice I found on the internet said to not plant them in the garden, as they tend to “take over the world”, and they are better in pots. I didn’t really follow this advice. I just planted them out in the backyard in a corner, near my grape vines and irises. They didn’t get very big the first season, so I was ok with that. I also figured I would be using them so much that I would keep them under control. I think the key is to trim them regularly and keep them under control…or they just might become a weed.

I enjoyed fresh mint tea all summer long. It was fabulous. I also collected and dried an entire quart size mason jar of mint leaves, hoping to get through the winter. Sadly, just as winter happened along, I dropped my silly glass jar, and of course it shattered. Boo. I had to make due with the apple mint I had dried (which wasn’t very much), and was actually pleased that apple mint does pretty good in tea as well. Not the same, but good enough.

Ok, fast forward to this week. Winter is almost done and a few days ago I went out and found my mint plants. They had already begun to grow. The apple mint needed a haircut, as I didn’t tend to it in the winter. So I trimmed off all the dead leaves and left just the stems and new leaves. The nice thing about apple mint is that it doesn’t spread as much as peppermint (although I have seen it try to put out runners occasionally) and the leaves seem to grow faster and are bigger.

The two peppermint plants had taken different routes. One was small and compact, with all the leaves growing out of a general area, kind of like a bush. The other was putting out runners and reminded me of a viney plant you see in horror movies. Spreading its tentacles and crawling along the dirt in all directions. So I trimmed them both. The bush one I just had to trim off the dead leaves. The tentacle one had started to put down roots along the runners. I thought it was kind of neat, but also want to keep it somewhat under control. Without having any education or experience in the area of mint plants (or any plants for that matter) I decided to trim all the vines. I separated from the main plant the ones that had taken root. And the ones that were just loose I trimmed near the main roots. I will watch and see what happens.

I’m calling it an experiment in peppermint propagation (totally not related to my little dog, who also happens to be named Peppermint). I gathered up the runners I had trimmed off completely and am attempting to make starts out of them. There was a garden pot sitting on the deck that was full of dirt but no plants. I put the runners into the dirt, burying both ends (just in case), so they look like little arches; nothing fancy. Then it got really cold and started to snow. Looking out the window it appears as though the leaves are healthy and growing. I may be delusional, but it just may work!

I’m hoping to take peppermint to my new house, so I’m trying to figure out how to do it in the meantime. I also have strawberries, raspberries, and sage that I intend to move as well. The grape vines I am still contemplating, and the blackberries not likely (I don’t love them as much, and I absolutely hate thorny plants). But it will all just depend on how much time I have and what else catches my attention this summer.

Read more about growing and using mint:
Homegrown Mint