Mint
Mentha
A pungent cabbage-moth deterrent — best sunk in a pot to contain.
- Type
- Herb · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Purple and violet
- Sunlight
- Part shade to full sun
- Watering
- Moderate–high
- Soil
- Moist, rich
- Feeding
- A light feed in spring is enough; there is nothing to gain from more.
- USDA zones
- 3a–8b
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- July
- Pruning
- Cut it hard back after flowering, and down to ground level in autumn.
- Plant out
- at the last spring frost
- First harvest
- 30 days after the last spring frost
- Harvest ends
- 14 days after the first fall frost
- Mar–Apr Spring Growth
- Apr–Jul Harvest
- Jul–Nov Flowering
- Nov–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 15.7 in
- In-row spacing
- 13.8 in
- Between rows
- 17.7 in
- Square-foot density
- 1 per square
- Root system
- Running rhizomes
- Working depth
- 4–12 in
- Can reach
- 18 in down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 5–13 ft across, about 2–4× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 12 in of soil
It travels underground, and it does not stop where you would like it to. Taking the tops off does nothing at all to the run, and every fragment left behind is a new plant. In open ground the only boundary that holds is a barrier sunk two spits deep, or a container with its rim standing clear of the soil.
The classic case for a barrier. White rhizomes run just under the surface, well past anything the plant shows above ground, and a piece of one is a new plant. A pot sunk in the bed only works if the rim stands clear of the soil, because it will otherwise simply run over the top.
Figures recorded for Mint itself. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- Cats and dogs
- Recorded toxic
Recorded as toxic to cats and dogs by ASPCA.
A genus-level match on both sides: the ASPCA names Mentha sp. and our own entry names only Mentha.
- When
- Harvest from mid-spring right through to autumn, whenever stems have plenty of leaf. Oil content — and therefore flavor — peaks in the morning and just as flower buds form, so a big pre-flowering cut in early summer gives the best material for drying.
- What to look for
- Stems 10cm or taller with bright, aromatic, fully expanded leaves. Leaves are at their most pungent just before the plant flowers; after flowering the flavor coarsens until it regrows.
- How to harvest
- Pinch or cut stem tips just above a leaf pair for everyday use — each cut point branches into two. For bulk harvests, shear whole stems back to 5cm above the soil; mint is nearly indestructible and regrows within weeks.
- How often
- Pick as often as you like; frequent cutting keeps mint compact, leafy, and delays flowering. Two or three hard cut-backs per season are positively good for the plant and give successive flushes of tender growth.
- Storing the crop
- Fresh stems keep a week or more in a glass of water in the fridge. Mint dries well — hang bunches in a warm, airy, shaded spot, then strip and jar the leaves — and also freezes well chopped into ice cubes for drinks and sauces.
- Aphids Small sap-sucking insects — greenfly, blackfly — that cluster on soft new growth and excrete sticky honeydew. Squash by hand, hose off with water, and encourage ladybirds and lacewings.
- Whitefly Tiny white moth-like insects that rise in clouds from leaf undersides, weakening plants and leaving honeydew. Hang yellow sticky traps and encourage or introduce parasitic wasps.
- Powdery mildew A white dusty coating over leaves and shoots when roots are dry but the air is humid. Keep plants watered and mulched, prune for airflow, and remove the worst leaves.
- Rust Mint rust
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Big-eyed bug Geocoris spp.
A stubby 3 mm bug with enormous wrap-around eyes, working the soil surface and the low foliage for aphids, mites, thrips and insect eggs. It is the main natural check on chinch bugs in a lawn and it is killed outright by insecticide.
- Dragonflies & damselflies Odonata
Aerial hunters that take mosquitoes, midges and small flies on the wing all day, and whose larvae spend a year or more clearing the same insects from the water. A pond with planted margins and no fish is the way to have them.
- Green lacewing Chrysoperla carnea
Its bristly larvae — "aphid lions" — impale aphids, mealybugs, thrips, and mite colonies, eating hundreds a week. Adults feed on nectar and pollen from small open flowers and overwinter in hollow stems left standing.
- Ladybird (lady beetle) Coccinellidae
The gardener’s favorite ally: adults and their alligator-shaped larvae each eat thousands of aphids, plus scale, mealybugs, and other soft-bodied sap-suckers. Grow flat, open flowers for the adults and never spray a colony that ladybird larvae are already working.
- Minute pirate bug Orius spp.
A pinhead-sized true bug that is the best natural check on thrips, and happily spears aphids, mites, and insect eggs too. It needs pollen when prey is scarce, so keep something flowering nearby.
- Parasitic wasps Braconidae & Trichogramma
Tiny, stingless wasps that lay eggs in or on caterpillars, aphids, and moth eggs — the white cocoons riding a hornworm are their calling card, so leave that caterpillar be. Umbel flowers with shallow nectar keep the adults fuelled.
- Spiders Araneae
Webs, ambushes, and night patrols make spiders the garden’s steadiest generalist predators, taking whatever flies or crawls past. Mulch, ground cover, and undisturbed corners keep the population dense.
- Aphid midge Aphidoletes aphidimyzaHunts Aphids
A tiny midge whose orange maggots paralyze aphids and drink them dry, twenty or more each. Sold as a greenhouse biological control and resident outdoors wherever there are small nectar flowers and an unsprayed aphid colony to find.
- Assassin bug ReduviidaeHunts Aphids
A patient ambusher with a curved beak it drives into whatever it catches — caterpillars, beetles, bugs, and the occasional bee, so count it a generalist rather than a specialist. It will jab a careless finger too, so admire it and leave it be.
- Damsel bug NabidaeHunts Aphids
A slender, mantis-armed bug that grabs aphids, small caterpillars, and thrips in low crops and meadowy edges. Leave a strip of unmown grasses and flowers for it to overwinter in.
- Garden birds PasseriformesHunts Aphids
Both things are true: birds strip your currants and a brood of blue tits takes several thousand caterpillars out of one fruit tree in a fortnight. Net what you must and welcome them everywhere else — a nest box near the apples is worth more than a spray.
- Hoverfly SyrphidaeHunts Aphids
Bee-mimicking flies whose legless larvae graze aphid colonies clean while the adults pollinate. A ribbon of shallow, nectar-rich flowers kept in bloom all season recruits wave after wave of them.
- Praying mantis MantidaeHunts Aphids
A sit-and-wait ambusher that snatches caterpillars, beetles, and anything else that wanders close — friend and foe alike, so count it a mixed blessing. Tall, structured plantings give it perches and egg-case anchors.
- Soldier beetle CantharidaeHunts Aphids
Soft-winged beetles seen mating on flower heads in high summer; adults and larvae both take aphids and soft grubs. Open composite flowers are their landing pads and hunting grounds.
Tomatoes, Cabbage, Peas
Good neighbors
- Tomato Repels pests
- Arugula Repels pests
- Cabbage Repels pests
- Salad burnet Draws pollinators
- Broccoli
Keep apart
Mint spreads by underground runners so fast that gardeners sink it in pots to contain it.
Green-leaved herbs with purple and violet flowers, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com