Mint imperials

Herbs are fashionable, and rightly so.

They can lift even the most basic cooking from dull to sharp quicker than you can say mint. Go on, say it.

Mint.

That's quick eh?

This is the second in my series on herbs, the first taking issue with basil. I've been asked by a Twitter follower, @MissilePanda, to write more about good herbs to plant that will survive. I reckon mint is a good starter. But...one of the first things I was told on planting mint was to put it in a container. Leave it in open soil and it will colonise.

So of course  in the open soil it went,  to see just how much it colonised. First of all it claimed the fledgling celeriac, then the young third batch of broad beans. I had to have a mint cull.

This year I clearly didn't learn my lesson. Yes, I put  them in a container, but I gave it companions. Like minded woody herbs that it would surely show some respect to?

Ah how naive, mint does nothing but dominate and subordinate:

What you can't see underneath all that mint are the rotting corpses of thyme stalks, all grey and decrepit. The mint really shows no mercy in its march to dominate its territory. Imperialism indeed.

The only way to keep mint in check is give it a container of it's own, and allow your other herbs space to breathe.  It might mean a bit of outlay on pots but you can then take time to arrange your pots in a nice way, thinking about which herbs look good together, which take pride of place.

Or develop a Mojito habit.

B&Q isn't expecting a run on containers this summer.