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How to Grow Mint
Check Out: How to Grow Spring Onions (Scallions)
For those into growing edibles, here’s a guide on how to grow your own mint from a cutting. I grew my mint in a pot for food garnishing reasons – most of the time, I only need a leaf or two to garnish my food, and I find that I won’t be able to finish a whole packet purchased from the supermarket. Home-grown mint is fresh and you can cut them whenever needed. For those who are total gardening noobs like me, the good news is that mint is perfect to plant because they are easy and fast growing – in fact I read that some people prefer to grow them in pots for fear of the mint overtaking their garden. To grow mint, I simply take a cutting (cut a stalk of mint and chunk it into the soil) and it grows easily to a lush plant in a month. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to grow your own mint.
P.S. I don’t know much about gardening. I’m simply growing them (mainly edibles) so that they can come in handy for my cooking and photo shoots (for example, I grow coriander and spring onions for garnishing foods). I am writing about my successful gardening projects to share with those who are interested to grow their own foods. Therefore, I apologize in advance for not being able to give any good advice on plant care, except for what type of conditions worked for me.
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First of all, you need mint cuttings. You can get them from someone you know who had a pot of mint. Simply snip off a stalk of it, and for maximum results, pluck most of the leaves at the bottom away as shown above. I’m not sure if harvested mint bought off the shelves can be used, but I’m fairly sure it might work as I grew sage this way before. |
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Plant by burying a considerable part of the stalk into the soil. |
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You have planted one mint cutting. Do a few more with some spacing between the cuttings. I do about 3-5 of these per pot because sometimes, not all the cuttings survive. Water the pot daily with exposure to sunlight and fertilise the soil fortnightly. If they are successful, you can see them growing within a few days or two. If they are not successful, it is quite telling because they will wither quickly. Should that happen, you can try again. |
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The above is the actual pot of cutting I made – I didn’t even trim off most of the leaves as I was quite sure they will survive as I done this many times. The earlier 3 photos were taken recently just to make this step-by-step tutorial as I realized I had forgotten to take close up photos of the successful cuttings. |
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After 1 month and 1 week, my tiny cutting has blossomed into a lush pot of mint. Fertilize fortnightly with organic fertilizer. |
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Close up of the leaves. If you already have a pot of mint, you can still try out this tutorial to either to increase your pots of mint or to grow a “reserve pot” in case (touch wood) your existing mint ever get hit by plant diseases. Happy gardening and cooking! |
My grandfather has been growing in a greenhouse for the past few years, seems to always get great results. He gives me fresh herbs every few weeks. When I have more free time i keep meaning to go over and see what I can learn for my own garden. Im gonna pass this along to him and see what he thinks.
Cool, I didn’t know it can grow from a cutting too. Glad to know. Thanks!
Very informative post. Love it.
Beautiful plant wiffy! You have the gardener’s touch. ;)
By the way, what do you usually use your mint for? Mom bought some the other day and so far we have only put it on yogurt topped with granola, but really aren’t sure of many other uses? (minus the obvious of ice cream or chocolate cake lol)
Thanks Hopping, but I’m not the one taking care of the plant ;) Mint can be used for making mint tea, mint sauce… and maybe mint pesto? You’re making me think of chocolate again!
Thank you! Mint tea sounds wonderful! I’ve gotten in the habit of having tea before bed. Hehe sorry to bring up the chocolate. :P
Hey Wiffy
I was so inspired by you that I went to buy a pot of mint (and rosemary) from the nursery. Hopefully I’ll have green fingers like you and keep it alive as long as I could. I used a few leaves for the mandarin orange sorbet and am totally clueless what else to do with the plant. Haha! Hope you can share more recipes using mint. :)
Thanks,
Elise
That’s amazing! You can do cuttings of rosemary too, similar to the mint cuttings. I’m sure they will survive because they are kind of hardy :)
Yes, home-grown mint can save wastage, does mint must avoid direct sunshine ?
Base on my own experience, I think mint thrives on sunshine. I place mine at the corridor with strong morning sun and I water it once daily.
Mint doesn’t mind sunshine. It will grow very prolifically if you plant it in the garden (it takes over it’s area and then starts to move into everyone else’s spots if you’re not careful! Outside it will die back in the winter (I live in a milder winter climate, though) but it comes right back up happily in the spring.
Hello wiffy! Sorry I’ve been quiet for so long. Such a crazy year it’s turned out to be… I love this post! You are too cool! Now I want to grow my own mint…I spend so much money on herbs it’s ridiculous..
NC, I like mint, but I always take the easy way out and buy potted mint, then I bring it home and replant in a bigger pot. And boy, how it takes off.
One of these days I’ll get brave and will try growing them via cuttings, and see what develops.
My neighbor gifted me with a pot of mint. There are several different varieties within the pot. It seems to be doing well, and I would like to use it. I think any would go well in tea. My problem is I don’t know which mint to use in a savory dish. Can you help?
Can I know what fertilizer you use for mint. Do spring onions need fertilizers too? If yes what kind? I have the usual red liquid food fertilizer which I wonder whether it can be used on these plants too? Thanks
Hi, I don’t normally add fertilizer but if you want, can use either the seaweed liquid (sold at supermarkets and nurseries) or regular compost fertilizers.