Mint Seeds 200 Seeds

Mint is one of the most rewarding aromatic herbs you can keep at home: a hardy perennial with a clean, cool, refreshing flavour and a bright green, fragrant leaf that scents the whole patch as soon as you brush past it. Its tender young shoot tips carry the most intense flavour, making mint a favourite for fresh tea, cold drinks, salads, and finishing cooked dishes. The plant grows into a generous, bushy clump that spreads aggressively by underground runners to fill whatever space you give it, and frequent cutting only makes it fuller — so a single planting becomes a long-lived, productive herb bed.

Planting

Start mint seed indoors in spring, roughly 6 to 8 weeks before your planting-out date, and transplant outdoors only after all danger of frost has passed. Surface-sow the seed: press it gently onto the surface of the growing medium and do not cover it, because mint needs light to germinate. Keep the medium moist and well lit throughout, and expect germination in about 10 to 14 days at 22 to 24 C (around two weeks at roughly 20 C). Once seedlings have several leaves, pot them up into a small 7.5 cm pot. Set plants out about 45 cm apart, in rows about 45 cm apart; mature plants reach roughly 45 to 90 cm tall and spread by rhizomes, so give them room. Mint is in fact more reliably propagated vegetatively — by dividing a mature clump or rooting stem or runner cuttings — than from seed, with divisions and softwood cuttings taken in spring.

Fertilizing

Mint prefers rich soil that is high in organic matter, so work compost or well-rotted manure into the bed before planting; this feeds the plant, improves drainage, and in well-amended ground may mean no extra fertilizer is needed at all. Aim for a soil pH of 6.0 to 6.5. Where you do feed, apply nitrogen from spring to early summer to match the plant's active growth. Avoid overdoing nitrogen: excess produces soft growth that attracts spider mites and aphids and can make disease worse.

Care

Give mint full sun to partial shade — at least 4 to 6 hours of sun a day. It will grow in sun or shade but is most productive in full sun while tolerating light shade. Keep the root zone consistently moist, never letting plants wilt between waterings, but not waterlogged. Water the soil directly rather than the leaves to reduce leaf disease, water deeply instead of light frequent sprinklings, and favour drip irrigation over overhead sprinklers. Watch for mint rust, aphids, spider mites (worse in hot, dry conditions and with excess nitrogen), blue mint beetle, mint moth, and leafhoppers; verticillium wilt is a serious soil-borne disease, so start with disease-free stock. Dislodge aphids and mites with a strong jet of water or insecticidal soap. Harvest individual leaves or shoot tips once plants are established — the soft tips have the best flavour — from late spring through autumn. Remove flower spikes to keep the leaves flavourful, and after flowering cut the whole plant back to about 5 cm from the base to bring on fresh growth. Divide established clumps every 3 to 4 years to keep them vigorous.