IT'S TRYING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD

[deird1]

I am more and more convinced that, long ago, a frustrated gardener got SO sick of dealing with this weed that persisted in taking over his veggie garden no matter what he did, that one day he heaved an exasperated sigh, threw his shovel on the ground, and said, "Right. From now on, it's not a weed. It's a food. Hear that, lads? If any of the toffs ask, we meant to grow it, we want to grow it, and it's so delicious that we're going to use this entire area just to grow it. We'll move the rest of the veg somewhere else. Got that?"

And the name of this plant was... mint.



I have been determinedly eradicating the mint from my garden for a few weeks now. I pulled out every bit of it I could find, but every few days these tiny shoots of mint peep their little heads out of the soil – and when I pull them out, they come attached to ENORMOUS FRELLING ROOTS that span half the garden bed. Today I pulled out a root as long as my arm.

It's an evil plant of spreading doom, I tell you!

Comments

[megpie71]

Mint was originally a bog plant, which means it can't be drowned, and it doesn't get killed by drought. Other things I've found don't kill mint include 0C frosts, 40C plus temperatures, hacking it back to ground level, and prolonged neglect. The best place to grow it is in a container - I bought a large, cheap, plastic tub, and a 30L bag of potting mix back in 2006 when we first moved back to Perth, and planted a single mint plant in the middle of the container. Three house moves, and a lot of neglect later, and it's still going strong. (My father-in-law recently fed it for the first time ever, and as a result it thinks it's Christmas. I'm getting a LOT of peppermint tea out of it).

Best policy for keeping mint from taking over the garden is not to let it in there in the first place. If it is in there, make sure you got all of the roots, because even the smallest part will re-sprout. Round-up painted onto each individual sprout (ala weeding wand) might work, or the wretched stuff might sit there and snigger at you before re-growing.