Date:   8/3/2006 10:15:03 PM ( 18 y ago)
Hits:   3,457
URL:   https://www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=589616

"....Plant Mint! It is invasive...so plant accordingly..."

Odd thing you should say that. I did kick up a notch or two the amount of mint planted this spring (many plants, several varieties). I've been doing the gardening gig about 10 years now. Last year, I helped big sister successfully plant, grow and harvest some tomatoes......it nearly brought a tear to my eye to see the satisfaction in her eye at harvest time....she really liked the idea of having masses of fresh tomatoes to eat and can. So, this year, of course, big sis went full bore on setting up a big garden.... had several tons of commercial-grade mushroom manure / top soil delivered.... the whole nine yards. God love her, big sis has her heart in the right place, but she's also become quite the typical conditioned domesticated consumer. It's not that she's not fond of wildlife, it's just that she prefer it not come any closer than about a 100 foot barrier around her house.......like birds.... you enjoy them, I enjoy - the closer the better, (there is even a local robin that's sort of become my pal this year), she enjoys them at a distance, but if they hang around the house, it's "them damn birds dragging dirt that and making nests that I'll have to clean up at some point!"......she likes harvesting, is so so on the effort required to plant, but is not at all into routine maintenance, like weeding. Every time there is a weed or a bug that shows up, she promptly goes out to the retail hardware store and gets another gallon or 50lb bag of "nukem" (figureatively)....whatever the retailers happen to be pushing that week for "rids pests"...... :( , yeah, she's a project, but I'm slowly gaining with her.

Anyway, I told her about how I planted mint all throughout my main garden plus in several herb barrels I'm growing. ( i even managed to sneak a few extra plants into her garden covertly placed between some tomatoe plants;) Right away she says "you know how invasive this stuff is?" (translation - like it's a bad thing, or somethign, in her mind) and my reply was " yep, absolutely"... and big sis gives me that odd, confused look. I've now got half a freezer full of fresh harvested mint to keep me in fresh tea througout the winter, plus enough on the side to still do some herbal/tincture experimenting, and yes, they are a magnet to honey bees, the bumblebees & yellow jackets seem to prefer flowers (flower flowers, not herb flowers).

Another of my favorite friendly herbal invasives - Borage; grows quick, flowers & reseeds profusely. Some say tomayto, some say tomahto, some say invasive as though it's a bad thing, others think invasive as though it is an intended consequence :)







 

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