Easy-to-grow mint

Some plants are just oh-so-satisfying to grow. They per­form effort­lessly with lit­tle care and grow in just about any spot they are placed. No, I am not writ­ing about dan­de­lions ­but about one of my very favorite herbs, mint. On this first Sat­ur­day in May, mint is a timely topic. As you prob­a­bly know today is the Ken­tucky Derby; and the offi­cial (since 1938) cock­tail of the Derby is the mint julep. Mint is incred­i­bly easy to grow, fun to use and no herb gar­den is com­plete with­out it. The mint fam­ily, Lami­aceae or Labi­atae, is richly diverse and includes most favorite herbs: basil, rose­mary, sage, laven­der, mar­jo­ram, oregano and of course, mint.

While all related, no mem­ber of this fam­ily grows as eas­ily or quickly as mint (men­tha). In fact, mint grows so eas­ily and spreads so well due to under­ground stolons (or run­ners), that it is often con­sid­ered inva­sive. As a pro­lific peren­nial, it is impor­tant to real­ize if mint is not planted in a con­tained space both above and under­ground it will eas­ily cover that area. For that rea­son, I advo­cate grow­ing mint in a container.

In terms of care, mint is quite easy. Ideal con­di­tions for mint are cool, moist soil and par­tial shade; how­ever, it will grow in full sun and tol­er­ate shade. Per­son­ally, I have grown mint in win­dow sills, fil­tered shade, par­tial shade, and full sun suc­cess­fully. The most com­mon vari­ety of mint is spearmint, men­tha spi­cata, which has a long his­tory of being used to per­fume beauty prod­ucts, as well as fla­vor baked goods, cock­tails, sweet tea and very com­monly, tooth­paste. The culi­nary uses for mint are vir­tu­ally end­less: sweet or savory, from Amer­i­can to Moroc­can and break­fast to din­ner. Per­haps this wide range of uses for this pop­u­lar herb is because it seems to grow faster than it can be used. The essen­tial oil from mint is also com­monly used in the beauty indus­try. Because mint essen­tial oil has anti-fungal prop­er­ties, it is used in nat­ural sham­poos and con­di­tion­ers as a preser­v­a­tive. In herbal­ism, mint has been used to help stom­ach ail­ments for thou­sands of years.

Mint sold under the com­mon name ‘Ken­tucky Colonel’ is regarded as the offi­cial vari­ety for the mint julep. It is actu­ally a cross-hybrid of tra­di­tional spearmint and apple mint, thought to orig­i­nate in Ken­tucky. It is an appeal­ing choice for a mint julep because it has the zest of spearmint to cut through bour­bon as well as sweet­ness to rouse and com­ple­ment the sweeter fla­vors of oak-aged bour­bon. The earliest-recorded men­tion of a mint julep is in a book pub­lished in Lon­don in 1803, noted as a “tra­di­tional Vir­ginia recipe” Henry Clay, a Ken­tucky sen­a­tor, is cred­ited with pop­u­lar­iz­ing the cock­tail by intro­duc­ing it to the Round Robin Bar at the Willard Hotel in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. where it became a pop­u­lar cock­tail. Each year at Churchill Downs approx­i­mately 120,000 mint juleps are sold on the first Sat­ur­day in May for the Derby alone. The tra­di­tional ves­sel for a mint julep is in a frosted sil­ver tum­bler, although now com­monly served in glass.

Mint is avail­able in count­less hybrids, favorites being lemon-mint, lime-mint, chocolate-mint and var­ie­gated mint. These com­bi­na­tions also occur com­monly in other mem­bers of the mint fam­ily like basil and thyme.

If your green thumb needs a lit­tle boost to its ego, or you are look­ing to start an herb gar­den, I encour­age you to grow mint. Quick and easy, insen­si­tive to loca­tion and deli­cious and fra­grant, mint is one of the very most enjoy­able herbs to grow. With a full spec­trum of uses and a rich his­tory, mint is one of my favorite addi­tions to the garden.

Stephen Jones is an OSU Exten­sion Mas­ter Gar­dener volunteer.

Posted by Master Gardener on May 4 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.