Mint is an amazing plant to grow in your garden for both culinary and pest prevention purposes. It’s also incredibly ornamental and smells great in the garden. We’ve been growing mint for years and we miss it terribly when it has died out, once due to the polar vortex of 2018. We’ve planted mint straight from the grocery store (thanks Meijer and Wegmans) as well as from seed. I don’t think there’s been a single year when we haven’t grown mint. It’s just so versatile in cooking and pest control, and the plant is so easy to grow that it’s a joy. If you don’t have mint in your garden, you really need it!

Growing Mint is a Deterrent to Garden Pests

Mint is an amazing pest deterrent. In fact, it’s one of the primary reasons that we grow mint (as well as for its culinary uses). Mint deters many varieties of spiders, as well as cabbage moths, aphids, whiteflies, squash bugs, and ants. There’s an area on our porch near the back door that used to be consistently cobweb ridden. Large spiders had made their webs to feast on the moths and other bugs attracted to the back porch light. Once we moved the mint plant under the porch light, our spider problems vanished overnight.

I’ve read that mint is also an effective deterrent against deer and squirrels. While we don’t get a lot of deer poking their noses into our garden (though they are around), the squirrels haven’t seemed to get the memo about mint being a deterrent. I’d be interested to hear if others have different experiences.

Best Conditions for Growing Mint

Mint plants will get anywhere from 1 to 4 feet tall and 1 to 3 feet wide. It’s a hardy plant to nearly zero degrees Fahrenheit (about -15 degrees Celsius). It thrives in partial sun, but can handle full sun as long as it gets a little bit of shade throughout the day.

Mint, like most succulent herbs, loves water, but it also doesn’t like to sit in too-moist soil. So make sure the soil you plant your mint in is well drained. Slightly acidic soil is best for growing mint, which will give your mint leaves their signature flavor. If your mint plant tastes a little bland, watering with a fertilizer to raise the acidity in the soil should give the plant what it needs.

Mint is a perennial plant, so it will overwinter just fine in USDA zones 3-8. Cut it back in the fall, and use the leaves in the kitchen (some ideas below). Let it overwinter and it will come back hale and whole in the spring.

[Be aware! The USDA Hardiness Zones shifted in November 2023. Know what to expect for your growing area.]

Companion Planting for Mint

Mint is an excellent companion plant for tomatoes, squash, carrots, and leafy vegetables like kale, cabbage, and lettuce. Mint’s tendency to repel pests like white flies and cabbage moths, make it a great companion to plant next to plants that typically attract those same critters.

We learned our lesson this year of the benefits of mint as a companion plant. As mentioned above, we had something of a spider issue this year. Rather than plant a new mint plant in another pot, we foolishly decided to move our mint plant away from our kale. Boy did we pay the price! Within a matter of days cross striped cabbageworms completely overran our kale plants. That’s a mistake we won’t be making again anytime soon!

Never Grow Mint Directly in the Ground!

Despite the many benefits to growing mint in your garden, never ever grow it directly in the ground! While mint will produce flowers and go to seed to spread, seeds are not mint’s primary method of reproduction. Mint plants form rhizomes under the soil that then send up shoots of new mint plants to the surface. Strawberries and ground cherries like the Chinese lantern plant also spread by rhizomes. These rhizomes are extremely hardy and quickly get out of control if left uncontained.

My husband had a housemate once who planted mint directly into the ground when they were creating a kitchen garden. Despite the fact that he hammered in two layers of lawn edging, the mint quickly took over not only the kitchen garden, but started working its way into the lawn as well. It took my husband months of spraying weed killer on the mint plant to finally eradicate it.

If you decide not to heed my advice and do plant mint in the ground, one, I told you so. And two, keep vinegar on hand. One of the best ways to kill an out-of-control mint plant is to spray vinegar.

How to Harvest Mint

Mint does its best when you routinely prune it. This is great for you because you can enjoy the flavor of mint all growing season while also doing your mint plant a solid. If you leave your mint plant un-pruned, it will get leggy and will likely bolt. (Bolting is when a plant flowers and begins to produce seeds). You want to avoid your mint plant going to seed. The plant will allocate more of its energy into the seeds and less into producing awesome flavors in its leaves. If your plant starts to flower, cut those flowers off.

When you prune mint, do so from the top down, taking off at least the top two leaves at a branching point. Pruning in this way will cause the mint to grow one or two new branches. This will cause your mint to grow bushy and full rather than spindly and leggy. Ultimately, it produces a much happier and lush plant with more leaves for you to harvest for the kitchen.

Mint Uses

Mint has such a great variety of uses in the kitchen that it would be impossible to list it all here. From salads to main courses to desserts and beverages, mint adds a wonderful flavor to tons of dishes. Below are some of our favorite ways to use mint in the kitchen.

Cocktails & Mocktails

Perhaps the first thing that comes to mind when you talk about using mint in the kitchen is the varieties of cocktails and mocktails that you can make. The ever-famous Mojito is a prime example. But our favorite is actually a local Virginian original called the Bourbon Smash which was invented at a bar called Stellina in Roanoke, VA. Both cocktails are perfect for a hot summer day and are refreshingly cool.

Mint Simple Syrup

In mid to late summer, we often find ourselves with a gigantic mint plant that really needs to be cut back. But what to do with all that mint? You can only make so many mojitos or bourbon smashes, after all! A simple answer to this problem is to make a mint simple syrup.

A simple syrup is essentially just equal parts sugar and water that is heated so the sugar dissolves. A mint simple syrup boils the mint leaves along with the sugar to release the volatile oils of the mint into the reduction. Click here to get the full How To!

You can use mint simple syrup in cocktails, like those mentioned above, and in cooking. The perfect use for a mint simple syrup by far is as a marinade for a roasted lamb. You can read all about this amazing recipe at our companion blog: EasyDecadenceKitchen.com.

Mint Tea

Mint leaves make an excellent tea. In fact, mint has been used for centuries to treat stomach ailments such as indigestion and nausea. For this reason, I always have mint tea in the house for those days when I’m just not feeling my best. If you grow your own mint, it’s so easy to make your own mint tea. You can use fresh leaves straight from the plant or dry them for later use.

Best yet, save the leaves from the pot when you make mint simple syrup and dry them on a paper towel for a week or two. The simple syrup infuses the mint leaves with sugar and make your tea taste even sweeter when you brew it later.

Heat water to 150 degrees Fahrenheit (65 degrees Celsius). Any hotter than that and you risk burning the leaves which adds a very poor flavor to your tea. Be sure to crush the tea leaves, especially if you’re using fresh mint leaves rather than dried. Crushing the leaves releases the volatile oils held within the leaves and makes a more potent flavor.

Your Turn! Make Some Mint Magic

Now that you’re armed with these facts on mint, I hope you’re inspired to grow mint in your own garden. Let us know if you’ve grown mint and how it’s worked in your neck of the woods!