When days heat up, a dish prepared with light, crisp mint leaves will taste delicious.

The cooling, sweet flavor of mint goes great with both sweet and savory dishes — try it with anything from omelettes to ice cream. While mint is easy to find at your local market this time of year, it’s simple enough that you should be growing it yourself.

Seriously.

It’s one of the easiest herbs to grow. It’s fragrant and fast-growing and requires a very minimal time commitment. Plant in a  container on your porch for easiest maintenance, since mint grown directly in the garden soil has a tendency to spread in weed-like fashion. When choosing your location, find a spot where the plant will receive morning sunlight and partial afternoon shade. Mint is pretty resilient, so the natural rain water might be all you need, depending on where you live. Just keep an eye on the pot’s soil. If it starts to dry out, give it a light watering.

Move your mint pot inside for the winter and it will continue to thrive. Place in an area with indirect sunlight, preferably a west or south facing window for the fall and winter months. Keep the soil moist but not wet. If the surface of the soil is dry then it needs water.

Rotate the plant every 3 to 4 days to help the plant grow evening. Like most plants, mint will grow towards the light and will become lopsided.

And that’s it. You’ll have fresh mint leaves on hand for year-round culinary creations — even if all that means to you is mojitos. Yum!


Your mint will grow so fast, you’ll be looking for recipes in no time. Check out these great ideas:

MINTED SWEET PEA HUMMUS

The Iron You

Blood Orange Mojito

Chef Savvy

Pomegranate and Lemon Couscous Salad

The Busy Baker

Cucumber, grapefruit, mint juice

Watermelon Salad

Comments

comments

Author

Meghan is a full-time writer exploring the fun facts behind food. She lives a healthy lifestyle but lives for breakfast, dessert and anything with marinara. She’s thrown away just as many meals as she’s proud of.