Since the lockdown in the UK many people have began to garden more indoors and out. At first I was gardening small vegetables then thought about trying to grow a herb. There the idea was born to start growing my own mint for self consumption. The idea struck me before the new COVID-19, however I wasn’t keen on testing my skills out. So being at home a lot helped me to research how the plant grows, how it progresses and really just know all about its life.

Why did I want to grow mint?

Well first of all, I wanted to grow mint because it meant that I would grow something new. I loved to test and try new things to keep life interesting. I also mainly wanted to be able to give my mum the best mint tea in the entire world, you see, my mum loves tea and especially mint tea. She drinks mint tea very often and I felt like homegrown mint would be best. Another reason why I chose to grow mint is so that I can reduce plastic waste coming into the home. I realised that every time we bought mint from the store it came in some sort of packaging and most of the time it was plastic. I have decided to become more eco friendly and growing mint at home was one of the biggest changes to reduce plastic waste, along with composting at home.

How do you grow mint?

To grow mint you can grow it from a seed or grow it from a trimming. Trimmings can be found at a supermarket in the vegetables section. I started to grow my mint at home from trimmings in a packet. To be honest the trimmings were in a dehydrated state and really did need a god reviving before growing root again. So first things first, you need to place your trimmings in a glass of water, depending on how dry you trimmings ae before you put them in water it might take some time for the mint to start to grow. After a few days, your mint will grow favourably, then in about 2-3 weeks at most, the plant will gain some roots. In order to keep the mint fresh change the water in the glass or holder every day.  Next after many roots and shoots have grown, find a pot to plant to the mint. You don’t have to grow mint in soil you can continue to grow it in water. But for me I just found growing it in soil gives the plant more nutrients and promotes faster growth.

Over the next few months, you can eat and enjoy your mint. To promote even more grow you can even continue repotting your plant into bigger pots and containers. One top tip, don’t grow mint directly into the ground or with other plants because the mint will invade the space.

Here is some mint I have grown so far

The last pot on the right is the first ever mint I managed to pot and grow fantastically. I planted three trimmings from the supermarket and now that they are much bigger I have repotted them into three separate pots.