Meddling Mint

Blast ye garden gods! Why do you thwart me so? Mint. All that mint. Is back. Taking over. My garden.

Remember a few posts back when I lovingly threw myself in front of my husband's shovel to save my mint plant before he hacked it out? I did dry a great deal of mint leaves but hubby still pulled the plant, satisfied that he had solved the problem. Yeah. Not so much. I went to the backyard with our garden notebook to plot out some fall plantings and this is what I found:

Mint. EVERYWHERE. Growing free as you please. Though my daughter is pleased as punch to have mint growing again, I, on the other hand, had a few choice words for that notoriously prolific herb. What have I done?? I was warned. But did I listen? No. I honestly thought if the plant were to get unruly (which it did) that we could just pull it out and be done with it. But lo and behold there it is. Taunting me. Threatening to suffocate all the fall veggies that I had hoped to plant.

I've  been visiting some gardening message boards and it seems the only way I might be able to get rid of it is to cut off it's water supply, dig deep and hard and spray whatever I find with vinegar. Cutting off the water is easy. We'll just turn off the irrigation. And the kids were more than happy to get their little shovels and dig and pull, though there was more dirt going out of the bed than mint plants. I'm afraid to use the vinegar...wouldn't it ruin the soil for the other plants I hope to grow in there?

I hope our plan of attack is effective. If I lose an entire raised bed to mint I will be beyond upset. A warning to all.....mint goes in a pot, not in a plot! I guess I'm going to learn how to make a mean mojito...

P.S. The kids quickly grew tired of helping Mommy massacre mint plants and wandered off toward the chicken coop to talk to the chickens. K yelled across the yard that the "silly chicken" had laid her egg on the ground instead of the nesting box. I dusted my hands and moved away from my pile of pulled plants to investigate. There, on the ground, was a tiny, perfect BLUE egg. Olivia has finally started laying! Hurray!