Your Daily Lesson: Mint is Invasive

…Lest there is anyone else as gullible as I.

We are surrounded by things that should illegal: Motorcycles without mufflers, Barbie commercials that make them look like they can walk by themselves, food labeling that want you to believe a fruit snack is as good for you as the real thing, and

…plant descriptions that say, New! Clumping, non-invasive spearmint.

Wow, thought I. Non-invasive mint! Buy, buy, buy, buy. (That means I bought four of them). So excited! Plant, plant, plant, plant. And now…

Dig, dig, dig, dig.

Every. Single. Year.

I will never be rid of that mint.

You gotta admire the tenacity. It’s in the same league as my admiration for raccoons. I can’t deny they should be complimented on their tenacity. I’ve got an idea for a new breed of raccoon: hybridize them to eat mint and not chickens.

Anyway. Please, if you learn anything today, learn this:

1. What you order at McDonalds will not look like it does on TV, and
2. All mint is invasive, no matter what the label says.

In other gardening news:

Itty bitty apples have formed. While I can’t see the whole tree, it appears that I will have at least some apples, despite the frost. Yee ha. That means more apple jelly this fall!

Volunteer borage and sunflowers have been relocated to their rightful homes

For those of you with keen eyes, yes, this is the bed I just dug the mint out of, pictured above. Gardening for me is often this way. I go out to do something specific and find I have to complete three other tasks before I do the one thing I intended. In the case of the borage, I went out to plant the corn. But found I couldn’t plant the corn because in the bed I planned to plant it, were several borage and sunflower seedling volunteers from last year that needed to be moved.

You see, rather than start seeds or buy new plants, I just move around the ones that self sow and come up on their own. And this year, instead of putting the borage in with the herbs like I usually do:

(which always gets to be too crowed and chaotic, but you can see a borage volunteer right up against the chives, which I should have pulled but didn’t have the heart to. Oh dear…), I decided to put them in the center area where I usually have zinnias. I do love zinnias. I’m going to miss them this year. But:

1. I didn’t start zinnia seeds yet
2. I’m sick of buying them and don’t plan to go back to the garden store, and
3. They always look crappy by the end of the summer. I don’t know why. Maybe I don’t deadhead them enough?

They will be replaced with the borage which

1. Looks FABULOUS in a vase with sunflowers
2. The bees LOVE
3. Are nice enough to start themselves from seed for FREE

You can also eat borage and though I mean to look into this each year, I have never gotten around to it.

So anyway, I needed to move the borage OUT of the corn bed and IN to the spot planned for them. BUT I couldn’t do that because…

The MINT needed to be dug out first.

You getting all of this?

You starting to understand why I can’t get Jeanette’s brochure done for her?

Anyone want to call Jeanette for me and let her know all of this? If so, I would really appreciate it. Because I’m too embarrassed to call her.

So that’s it. I plan to go pick up my tomatoes, peppers and eggplants up today. I’m getting them from a FABIE local heirloom, organic grower. Total granola guy. He’s gonna change the world. Which is great, but all I really care about at this point are his plants. Which, if they are like last year’s, are stocky little healthy workhorses. Already hardened off. Amazing. It’s called Knightshade Gardens. If you live near me in Minnesota, you can reach them at 952-564-1714. They sell out in the western suburbs around Maple Plain.

Then, all I’ll have to do is plunk the tomatoes into the ground in their intended spot tomorrow:

GAK!