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Archives for May 2020

10 Cooking Herbs to Grow in Your Garden This Year

May 25, 2020 by Karen Leave a Comment

There is nothing quite like the flavor that fresh herbs add to dishes. Take your home cooking to the next level with this collection of cooking herbs that you can grow right in your backyard garden.

Herbs from my garden

Herb gardening is one of the unsung joys of growing edibles. Not only are the plants gorgeous in their own right, but they add incredible flavors to your favorite dishes.

As an avid cook, it cheeses me off when I have to spend 2 bucks on a clamshell of herbs that are not only days beyond their picking date, but where I also only need a tablespoon or so for the dish I’m making. It’s very gratifying to step out onto the deck – I grow most of my herbs in containers on my sunny deck – and snip just what I need. It’s a true joy of summer!

These ten cooking herbs will serve your kitchen well, with growing tips and interesting plant facts. Let’s get started!

Basil

Ocimum basilicum

Basil plants growing in a container

Possibly the most celebrated of culinary herbs, basil deserves space in your garden. A must-have ingredient for caprese salads and pesto, it’s also just a beautiful that grows all season long. Trim back when it starts to send up a flower stalk, and you’ll have fresh basil leaves until it gets chilly.

Four types of basil plants, sweet, dark opal, thai, and lemon
  • Start from seed or buy transplant? Either. Basil grows easily from seed, and young plants are usually readily available at garden centers or online nurseries (they’ll withstand shipping).
  • Annual or Perennial? Basil is basically an annual when grown outside. But, inside, its life can be extended indefinitely with care.
  • Grow indoors? Yes, basil thrives indoors and out, and will happily grow in a glass of water on the kitchen sill.
  • Culinary uses: dry leaves for long-term storage. Goes with just about anything with fresh tomatoes (caprese salad, tomato sandwiches), pizza topping, chop into salads. Pesto.
  • Pollinator bonus: Bees love basil flowers. I’ve grown 20 varieties of basil, and the bees have loved every one of them. I always grow extra plants that I allow to flower all season long, just for the bees.

Bay Leaf (Bay Laurel Tree)

Laurus nobilis

Bay laurel tree in a pot

Bay leaves are a nice addition to your cooking herbs collection. Toss a dried bay leaf into soups, stews, and stocks. Use them when cooking beans from dried. Any time you need a little extra seasoning for a liquid base.

The bay laurel tree is slow-growing, so no worries about it overwhelming your space. It can be trimmed up like Bonzai plant and kept small for a container.

  • Start from seed or buy transplant? Buy a transplant at the garden center; it will be well established and ready for home growth.
  • Annual or Perennial? Bay laurel is a tree, so it’s meant to live year-round. However, it does not do well in cold climates. I bring my bay laurel tree indoors in the winter. The dry indoor climate is not perfect, but it does hang in there and survive.
  • Culinary uses: soups, stews, tomato sauces, beans, rice for infusion during cooking (remove before serving the dish). Don’t forget homemade soup stock!
  • Bonus: insects generally hate the smell of bay leaves, so they’re often used in long-term storage of food products such as flour and rice. Place a dried leaf or two in the storage container – it will not impart flavor to the food.

Cilantro

Coriandrum sativum

A young cilantro plant

Cilantro is probably my favorite every-day herb: it goes on and in everything, from guac and salsas to dressings to refried beans, pasta dishes, rice dishes, and fresh salads.

If you’re one of the unlucky people whose olfactory receptor genes heighten the soap-flavored aldehydes in cilantro, you have my sympathies, because there’s no real substitute for the bright herbaceousness of cilantro. Parsley is too strong and sharp, in many cases.

Don’t let that put you off from trying the ground seeds of cilantro (coriander). I hear there’s no soapy taste.

  • Start from seed or buy transplant? Either, but cilantro is most economical when grown from seed.
  • Annual or Perennial? Cilantro is an annual, and a cool weather herb. Sow seeds early in the spring so that its greenery lifecycle is complete before June. The plant easily bolts in heat.
  • Culinary uses: sauces, dressings, vinaigrettes. Mexican and Tex-Mex dishes.
  • Pollinator bonus: Bees love cilantro flowers. I grow lots of cilantro – it’s often one of the earliest sources of food for bees.
  • No-waste bonus: One of the things I love most about cilantro is that it’s extraordinarily efficient, in terms of edibility. The green leaves and stems are edible, of course. The plant will flower when the weather turns hot and produce seeds. Interestingly, the seeds (known in the U.S. as coriander) are edible into two of its forms: when young and green, coriander has a unique, fresh, and crave-worthy flavor that’s amazing in salads and vinaigrettes. When dried, the seeds are ground and used as a spice.
Green seeds and dried brown seeds from the cilantro plant
Coriander seeds: dried and ready to grind (or replant), and young, green seeds, which are entirely edible and delicious.

Dill

Anethum graveolens

Young dill plant

Dill is a wonderful, versatile herb in the garden. Its feathery leaves are quite attractive when numerous plants are grown together in a cluster. Harvest the leaves and stems as you need them, leaving the rest of the plant to continue growing. At some point, the plant will send out a huge round seed head of beautiful yellow flowers that look like fireworks.

The flower heads produce seed, which can be used for pickling, or left to fall to the ground, where they will regrow next year.

  • Start from seed or buy transplant? Either. Dill grows easily from seed, and young plants are usually readily available at garden centers or online nurseries (they’ll withstand shipping). If you let some of the plants flower and produce seeds, those seeds will drop to the ground and sprout the following spring.
  • Annual or Perennial? Dill is an annual.
  • Grow indoors? Yes, dill will survive for a time indoors. It’s not the ideal environment, but it will produce in a sunny window with adequate watering.
  • Culinary uses: fresh dill makes delicious dips and salad dressings. Top a summer minestrone with dill.
  • Pollinator bonus: Many butterflies, including the Swallowtail, love dill: they lay their eggs on the leaves and stems, and the resulting caterpillars feed on the plants right up until they cocoon. I always, always grow lots of extra dill for the swallowtails.
  • No-waste bonus: One plant creates two products: the feathery leaves, and, after the plant flowers, the seeds that can be used in pickling.

Mint

Mentha

Spearmint plant growing in a container
Spearmint

Mint has its obvious flavor charms, but it’s also a stunning plant, with relentlessly green leaves and an attractive growing habit.

The mint family is extraordinarily large, well over 7,000 varieties, but just a few will do your garden a mighty service. Garden centers usually sell a lovely variety of culinary mint, including peppermint, spearmint, chocolate mint, orange mint, ginger mint, pineapple mint, and more.

  • Start from seed or buy transplant? Mint grows fastest via cuttings from its vast root system. Buy a plant from the garden center – you’ll likely have a choice of several of the varieties mentioned above. Mint spreads aggressively, so unless you want a field of mint, it’s advisable to grow mint in a container to keep it under control.
  • Annual or Perennial? Mint is a hardy perennial. It will die back in the winter, but return reliably in the spring, thanks to rhizomes that spread underground.
  • Culinary uses: teas, sauces, salads, cocktails, and my personal favorite: cucumber-lime-mint ice water (so refreshing!)
Varieties of mint

Oregano

Origanum vulgare

Oregano is a lovely cooking herb, but I’ll be honest: I grow it mainly for the pollinators. The photo below is my oregano garden – not the original intent for this space to be overtaken by one herb, but, I go with the flow where Mother Nature is concerned – and I harvest just enough oregano each spring to dry and fill its spice jar.

The real reason I let oregano live its best life here is because of the bees. Bees love oregano flowers. They will zoom right over the dazzling lavender bed to get to the oregano. Honeybee heaven.

But, of course, in terms of cooking, oregano is a must-have ingredient in your kitchen. Pizza night wouldn’t be the same without a dusting of dried oregano.

Oregano plants
  • Start from seed or buy transplant? Either, but you’ll have a head-start on the season if you buy a transplant from the garden center.
  • Annual or Perennial? Oregano is a perennial that dies back in the winter and returns each year, spreading as it goes. The photo above is 10-year-old oregano, about 3′ x 5′, and all started with just one plant.
  • Culinary uses: Italian cuisine. Harvest branches in the spring when the growth is new and fragrant, tie in a bundle, and hang to dry. Crumble the dried leaves into an airtight jar for use all year long.
  • Pollinator bonus: Because my oregano bed is so large at this point, I have the luxury of harvesting just a small portion of it in the spring, leaving the rest of it to flower. Of all the pollinator herbs in my yard, bees love oregano flowers the most.

Parsley (flat-leaf)

Petroselinum crispum

Flat-leaf parsley plants

Parsley is probably the hardiest herb I grow. If left to flower, it reseeds easily and pretty much takes care of itself, in terms of returning year and year.

It’s also quite surprisingly cold-hardy, for such a fragile-leafed plant. One winter, after an extraordinarily robust growing season, which created a parsley mass about 2′ x 3′, I decided to experiment and placed a row cover “tent” over the whole thing. The plant survived well into a very cold and snowy February, when it finally succumbed to excess moisture.

  • Start from seed or buy transplant? Either. Parsley grows easily from seed, and young plants are usually readily available at garden centers or online nurseries (they’ll withstand shipping).
  • Annual or Perennial? Neither. Flat-leaf Italian parsley is actually a biennial, which means its lifecycle is spread over two years: the first year focuses on leaf production (this is when its leaves are most flavorful). The second year – although sometimes it’s simply later in the season, rather than the following spring (depends on weather) – the plant sends up flower stalks and new greenery to nurture the flowers. The flowers will produce seeds, which drop to the ground. They’ll sprout the following spring and begin the cycle all over again.
  • Grow indoors? Theoretically, it’s possible. I’ve had only spotty luck keeping a parsley plant alive through the winter, as it doesn’t particularly care for the dry environment of a heated home.
  • Culinary uses: sauces, dressings, soups, chopped into salads. Adds a pop of color when minced and sprinkled over the final dish.
  • Pollinator bonus: Many butterflies, including the Swallowtail, love parsley: they lay their eggs on the leaves and stems, and the resulting caterpillars feed on the plants right up until they cocoon. I always, always grow lots of extra parsley for the swallowtails, and if I find the bright green caterpillars with black stripes on a plant, I’ll stop harvesting from it.
Parsley flowers
Parsley flowers – Nature’s fireworks

Rosemary

Salvia rosmarinus

Rosemary plant

Rosemary is a beautifully scented plant with an attractive, upright growing habit.

  • Start from seed or buy transplant? Rosemary is very difficult to grow from seed. Best to purchase a transplant at the garden center.
  • Annual or Perennial? Rosemary is an evergreen in some growing zones in the South, where year-round warm weather causes it to grow into a rather impressive and fragrant shrub. But here in our northern climes (such as my zone 6), rosemary is an annual. Most years, I keep it in a pot and bring it inside in the winter, where it continues for a few months (rosemary doesn’t particularly like the dry environment of a winter-heated home).
  • Culinary uses: soups, pan sauces. Goes great with chicken, potatoes, steak. You can use the sturdier branches as a skewer for grilling kabobs.

Tarragon

Artemisia dracunculus

Large French tarragon plant

Tarragon is one of my very favorite cooking herbs. It’s actually related to the sunflower, but shares a similar flavor palate with fennel and anise, thanks to estragol compounds within. I love tarragon in salad dressings and vinaigrettes, and chopped into fresh, green summer salads.

  • Start from seed or buy transplant? Transplant only. The best culinary tarragon by far is French, which can be propagated only through cuttings. Double-check the tag at the garden center: Russian tarragon is not very flavorful, and you’ll be disappointed if growing as a cooking herb.
  • Annual or Perennial? Tarragon is a perennial. It dies back with cold weather but regrows from its roots in the spring. The plant can grow quite large in its growing season, but it does not spread and expand, like mint and oregano.
  • Culinary uses: I think fresh tarragon is positively dreamy. Use it in salad dressings and vinaigrettes. Mince it into green salads. Goes great with chicken, seafood, and vegetables.

Thyme

Thymus vulgaris

English Thyme in the spring
English Thyme

Thyme is a lovely addition to soups and stew – tie together a bundle of freshly clipped stems and toss into the pot (remove the stems; the leaves will detach into the soup while cooking).

But, it’s also a beautiful plant. I love its straggly growth. I grow English and German thyme in the ground, and lemon thyme in a pot. I keep the pot in a high-trafficked area of my deck so that I can run a hand over it as I pass by. Its scent is amazing.

  • Start from seed or buy transplant? For time savings, buy a transplant at the garden center. Thyme seeds have low germination rates and can take a long time to sprout, making it difficult to know when to give up on the effort.
  • Annual or Perennial? Thyme is a very hardy perennial that’s actually an evergreen in many growing zones (including mine, 6a). Whether planted in the ground or grown in containers, thyme will, at a minimum, return each year. My container thymes die back in the winter, but my garden-planted thymes remain green all winter long, ready to cook with.
  • Culinary uses: sauces, soups, stews.
  • Pollinator bonus: Bees love thyme flowers. Thyme usually blooms late spring/early summer, and bees are all over it from start to finish.
Lemon thyme growing in a container
Lemon thyme growing in a container

If you’re new to herb gardening, this list also serves as a great starting point for your herb growing education. While herbs aren’t as glamourous as, say, a big, juicy Cherokee Purple heirloom tomato, I’ve found a lot of satisfaction in tending to my ever-expanding herb collection.

And as a devoted home cook, these cooking herbs are indispensable ingredients in my kitchen. I hope you’ll try some and enjoy the fresh bounty, right from your own backyard!

Cucamelons (Mexican Sour Gherkin)

May 18, 2020 by Karen Leave a Comment

Learn how to grow and care for the cucamelon plant, also known as Mexican sour gherkins (botanical name Melothria scabra). This attractive, vining vegetable produces small fruit that resembles a watermelon on the outside, but a cucumber on the inside. It has a cucumber flavor with a pop of citrus.

A handful of adorable cucamelons, freshly harvested.

The cucamelon is an example of why nature is so grand. So much character stuffed into an adorable package!

The cucamleon is a distant cousin of the cucumber, about the size of a grape tomato. The beautiful, watermelon-like markings on the outside set the expectation that the insides will be bright pink when sliced into.

What you find instead is a cucumber interior, complete with seeds. The flavor is refreshing: a combination of crisp cucumber with a zing of lime juice.

Cucumelons on the vine
A ripe cucamelon, ready to be picked.

They’re prolific viners, like cucumbers, and feature slender, spiky vines and outsized heart-shaped leaves. Yellow flowers are tiny and numerous, and the crop is abundant.

How to start cucamelons from seed

I have yet to see cucamelons offered as plants for sale by a brick-and-mortar garden center or nursery, so your best bet is to plan to grow them from seed.

Seeds and seed packet for cucamelon

Cucamelons thrive in either the ground or in containers. I prefer containers because their vines are slender and a bit fragile, and it’s easier for the plants to send their vines trailing downward rather than trying to crawl upwards. Plus, they’re slow growers, so the protection of a container environment lets them get their footing faster, especially in the spring, when storms and wild wind can wreak havoc on seedlings.

I usually grow them in rectangular window boxes on my deck rail, where they trail attractively, creating a wall of beautiful vines and sweet little fruits. The photos in this post are from a long window box on my deck, growing on the other side of a cherry tomato plant in a container.

If sowing seeds directly outdoors, definitely wait until the days and nights are well above 50ºF. Sow in loose, composted soil, about 1/2″ deep.

Cucamelon seeds being sown in compostable pots.
Cucamelon seeds in compostable pots. The container they’re sitting in has a fitted dome, which will retain moisture while the seeds sprout.

If starting indoors, sow the seeds in a small pot with seed starting mix, about 1/2″ deep. If possible, choose a set-up where you can dome the pots, holding moisture within until the seeds sprout.

A warming seed mat is very handy, as it will encourage faster sprouting. The seeds above sprouted in 5 days:

Cucamelon seedlings in compostable pots.

This is another advantage of starting the seeds indoors: in the years where I started the seeds outside in their permanent container, it took more than two weeks for the seeds to sprout. It’s harder to maintain optimal moisture levels during variable spring weather.

Once sown, keep the soil medium moist, but not soaking wet. Without a dome, you’ll probably need to water the pots every day.

The seedlings will be ready to transplant when they have their first true leaves. Take care not to disturb the soil around their roots. I take the pots above, cut off the bottoms (so that young roots don’t have to struggle to break through the walls) and plant the entire pot in the container. The plants will vine over the side anyway, so their configuration in the container doesn’t really matter.

Cucamelon vines growing over a cherry tomato plant.
One year, the cucamelon vines found their way into a cherry tomato plant on my deck. Note the size of a ripe cucamelon (top) compared with cherry tomatoes. The heart-shaped leaves are from the cucamelon plant, with its very slender vines.

Avoid moisture control soil mixes, unless you live in a very hot and dry climate. Most vegetables do not like to have constantly wet feet, and that type of soil never dries out. Plus, it molds readily in humid climates.

Instead, mix a bit of compost in with regular potting soil, and just stay on top of watering, especially while the plants are young.

Vining cucamelon plants in a window box on a deck rail

Take extra care when first transitioning seedlings from an indoor environment to outside. This year (2020) had a particularly hot spring and it took my plants quite a while to get used to the blazing sun.

Give your young plants several hours of late morning sun exposure before moving them back into the shade during the heat of the afternoon. Shiny spots on leaves indicates sunburn. Take your time. The plants in the photo above were particularly grumpy early on, but they’re now thriving in full sunlight.

How to care for cucamelons

When the plant begins vining, fertilize every other week or so with a fertilizer for vegetables. No need to get fancy with N-P-K ratios, unless you know your soil is particularly acidic (and then go for a high nitrogen blend).

Keep the plants well-watered throughout the growing season. You might have to water them every day during hot, dry stretches.

Freshly harvested cucamelons, with red bell peppers and basil.

Cucamelons are a beautiful and unusual crop to grow in your vegetable garden, with fruits you can eat right off the vine.

Try cucamelons in salads, as crudite, and chilled for refreshing afternoon snacks. I pickle them, too!

How to Grow Cucamelons

Cucamelons

Learn how to grow this adorable vegetable right in your home garden.

Prep Time 10 minutes
Active Time 10 minutes
Total Time 20 minutes
Difficulty Easy

Materials

  • Soil mix
  • Pots (if starting indoors)

Tools

  • Spoon or shovel

Instructions

  1. If direct sowing outdoors, prepare the soil by mixing in compost and turning to loosen. Smooth flat. If starting seeds indoors, fill pots (compostable or plastic) with seed starting mix. In both cases, plant seeds to a depth of 1/2". Water gently.
  2. Seeds will sprout in 3 to 14 days. Keep soil moist at all times, but not puddled.
  3. For seeds started indoors, you can transplant seedlings after they have their first set of true leaves and when they seem sturdy enough to survive the transplant. Try your best not to disturb or break apart the soil ball. Watering the pot first will help the soil hold together, if you did not use a compostable pot.
  4. Water frequently (daily, in very hot weather), fertilize every two weeks or so throughout the growing season.

Did you try this gardening project?

If this site has inspired you to try something new in your garden, share a photo of your creation on Instagram and tag me @sproutedgarden!

© Karen @ SproutedGarden.com
Project Type: Seed sowing / Category: Vegetables
Cucamelons on the vine.

How to Transplant Mint

May 11, 2020 by Karen Leave a Comment

Mint is a wonderful culinary herb and a beautiful leafy green plant that’s very attractive in the home garden. It’s also a prolific spreader. To keep mint under control, it’s best to grow it in a pot. Learn how to transplant mint, whether from the nursery pot, last year’s pot (which it’s outgrown), or even dug up from the ground. Also learn about its extraordinary root system.

Close-up of the leaves of a peppermint plant
Peppermint

One of the rites of passage for beginning herb gardeners is to make the mistake of planting a crazy, propagating plant that quickly grows out of control and takes over the garden. Lol.

My mistake was lemon balm, a distant relative of (but in the same family as) today’s subject. Lemon balm spreads aggressively through both its root system and its surprisingly hardy and portable seeds. Such a mess, I cannot tell you. It took over everything, smothering even purslane and dandelions in its path. I still find lemon balm sprouts in odd places in the yard to this very day.

But I’m here now so you can learn from me: don’t set yourself up for future headaches by planting something invasive like mint in the ground. There are completely sensible and legitimate reasons for letting mint run wild – if you’re an herbalist, for example – but for most backyard gardens, you’ll want to keep it on a tight leash and transplant mint to a container.

Close-up of three varieties of mint: sweet mint, peppermint, ginger mint
Three mints I grow in my container garden every year

Mint is a perennial herb in the Lamiaceae family, of which there are well over 7,000 varieties, from small house plants to large shrubs. Most of what you’ll find for purchase at the local garden center are aromatic mints with lovely and interesting flavors that are prized in the kitchen: the common spearmint and peppermint, of course, but also lemon, ginger, chocolate, pineapple, orange, licorice, grapefruit, lavender, and more.

I’m currently growing peppermint, spearmint, and ginger mint in my container garden – see photo above.

All of these amazing plants share one thing in common: they grow fast, and they spread far and wide via their elaborate and aggressive root systems.

A Look At Mint’s Incredible Root System

The root systems of mint have two primary features:

  • fine, fibrous tendrils that drop vertically from the plant to intake nutrition from the soil, as well as anchor the mint plant in place; and,
  • rhizomes, which are a type of plant stem that grows underground and can extend horizontally for great distances, producing offshoots that break the soil surface to create a new plant.

The roots themselves are nothing to shout about, as they produce the typical root ball that we’re all familiar with. But the rhizomes are something else entirely.

They’re clearly identifiable as thick stems (when not dusty with dirt, that is – see a nice shot of them in the photo below) and grow aggressively outward from the plant in a web, with the sole intent of creating new mint plants. And they’re very, very good at it.

The root system of a one-year-old mint plant, showing the root ball and extensive web of rhizomes.

The photo above is a one-year-old peppermint plant. When I bought this plant last year, I left it in the nursery pot and set it in some soil on a raised garden bench for the summer. Those rhizomes are just one year’s growth, winding around the interior of the pot. Imagine if those rhizomes had been free to roam the yard!

I hope the photo above drives home the advantage of growing mint in a pot. Even if you’re an avid cook or a connoisseur of mint tea or mojitos, it would be quite the feat to use up all of the plant’s leaves in one season. The average home gardener does not need an ever-more-sprawling plot of mint.

How to Transplant Mint

Mint is its best, most behaved self when kept in a pot. Even if you decide it must go in the ground, my advice is to plant it in a pot, and then plant the pot in the ground – and dig up and transplant to a larger pot in subsequent years as needed. The sole purpose is always to keep control of those rhizomes.

When to transplant mint

It’s fairly easily to know when a mint plant needs to move to larger pot. In most growing zones in the U.S., mint will die back in the winter (store the pot in an unheated garage or shed, or at least protected from wind outside). It will, in fact, look quite distressingly dead. But, hold steady.

In the spring, when the temperatures regularly warm above 55ºF, watch for mint’s revival. You’ll begin to see tiny leaves and shoots emerge from among the dead stems.

Leave the plant to do its thing for a bit. If the weather is dry, give it a light watering now and then.

The root system of a healthy ginger mint plant.
The root system of a ginger mint plant.

Once the growth begins in earnest, you’ll see a pattern emerge. If the green growth is consistent across the surface of the soil, the plant doesn’t really need repotting.

But if the center of the pot has no new growth, with new green sprouts ringing the edges, it definitely needs to be moved to a larger pot. The rhizomes beneath the surface drive the new season’s new growth, and if the sprouts appear only around the edges of the pot, that means the rhizomes have grown outward from the center of the plant – as is their imperative to do, to spread outward – and are running around the walls of the pot (remember the photo above) because they have no room to do anything else.

Select a pot

Mint’s root ball is not particularly large nor deep, so you don’t need to step up to a significantly larger container to transplant mint. I usually just go one size up (which, in the U.S., pots sizes usually come in 2″ increments), acknowledging that the plant might need repotting again next year. Make sure the pot has a drainage hole.

Choose a pot that’s large enough for the plant to sit in comfortably, with room below for a fresh soil base of an inch or so, and enough space around the sides to fill in with new soil.

Choosing a new pot for mint - leave room to add soil around the edges.

If the root ball is particularly compacted, you can gently break up the roots a bit by splitting the ball in half from the bottom up. I normally don’t, though. I also leave the rhizomes alone, even when they look quite squooshed.

Add soil

If the pot’s drainage hole is more than a 1/2″ in diameter, place a small rock, a square of screen, or even a coffee filter, over the hole, to prevent soil from crumbling out.

Transplanting mint - adding soil around the edges of the new pot.

Add a layer of soil to the bottom of the pot, and then set the plant in the middle. Add soil around the sides evenly so that the plant remains centered. Continue adding soil up to the level of the original surface. Press the edges down to firm the soil, and water well.

Trim away dead stems

With the plant set in the pot, you can now trim away the previous season’s dead stems and branches.

Use sharp scissors or needle-nose pruners to clip away the dead stems. You can tell dead stems from live because in the spring the woody stems will have no new green growth at any of the nodes along their length. And they’ll be quite brittle. Snip as close to the surface as possible without damaging the new growth around it.

Now set the pot in a sunny location and enjoy mint’s tasty leaves all summer long! The plant will fill in quite quickly.

Peppermint and Spearmint with new spring growth, freshly repotted into larger pots.

And those two mint plants just weeks later:

Two recently transplanted mints growing happily in their new pots

I hope you’ve found this look at how to transplant mint helpful and informative!

Yield: One plant

How to Transplant Mint

Newly repotted spearmint

Mint will last many and grow happily season after season, as long as it has enough room to spread a bit. Invasive mint is best kept in a pot, but will need the occasional move to larger container. Here's how!

Prep Time 10 minutes
Active Time 10 minutes
Total Time 20 minutes

Materials

  • Fresh potting soil
  • New pot or sanitized old pot

Tools

  • Soil scoop or hand shovel (optional)
  • Pruners or garden scissors

Instructions

  1. Select a pot. The new pot should accommodate the root ball, vertically, with an inch or two spare for new soil in the bottom of the pot. There should be 1/2" to 1" of new room around the sides. The pot will need a drainage hole (cover with a piece of screen if large).
  2. Add soil around the edges of the pot to set the mint plant in placeSet the plant in the center, and add more soil all around the sides, up to the surface. Press down on the both the plant and soil to firm everything in place.
  3. Trim dead stems from the mint plantTrim away any dead stems to allow room for new growth. Water thoroughly, and place pot in a sunny location.

Did you try this gardening project?

If this site has inspired you to try something new in your garden, share a photo of your creation on Instagram and tag me @sproutedgarden!

© Karen @ SproutedGarden.com
Category: Garden Solutions
How to Transplant Mint

How to Get Rid of Thistle

May 6, 2020 by Karen Leave a Comment

Thistle is one determined gardening foe. Learn how to get rid of thistle and the best way to control thistles in your garden without resorting to scorching the earth with chemicals.

Up-close photo of a young thistle plant

There’s just no easy way to say this, my gardening friends: An invasion of thistle in your vegetable garden is bad news.

It’s an unpleasant plant in general, not particularly attractive, and rimmed with numerous, slender spines that are painful when touched.

But, far beyond aesthetics, a thistle invasion means a long-term relationship with this noxious weed. Its survival game is on point and can generally outwit, outplay, and outlast any effort and exuberant determination we’re willing to spend on it.

So, the bad news is not just the invasion, but the whole war: it will take a season of staying on top of every outbreak, with a consistent weeding schedule: at least once a week, and after every rainy period.

How Does Thistle Spread?

Thistle is a very successful plant primarily because it’s extremely efficient at propagation. Like many invasive plants, it does, indeed, produce flowers and eventually seeds which will produce new plants when sown, whether by wind or humans, or even birds.

However, that’s not its one and only method. In fact, it’s not even its best method. No, thistle spreads most aggressively through its extraordinary root system.

Up-close photo of the root system of thistle - how to get rid of thistle
Thistle’s root system is very efficient and aggressive: their roots can spread both vertically and laterally, and the lateral shoots can reach lengths of 20 feet on a well-established plant.

Thistle first drops a thick and quick-growing taproot when the plant is only days old. From there, while the taproot continues drilling down into the soil, it sends out lateral shoots, which spread out from the plant like a web. These lateral shoots grow very long, in all directions, developing buds at nodes along their lengths, which can, in turn, produce more plants.

So, you can imagine the effect if you simply yank the plant out the ground: it breaks off at the taproot, and it also breaks off at all of those lateral points, which have the ability to regenerate into another plant.

Finally, the taproot is interestingly both sturdy and fragile. It drives relentlessly downward, with the goal of establishing a firm grip in the ground, as well as sends out shoots whenever possible.

It’s frustratingly difficult to cleanly free even a medium-young plant from the ground: the tip of the root breaks off easily, leaving behind just enough material to regenerate the plant underground.

Tilling, which is often an effective means of disrupting the growth of other invasive plants, has the opposite effect with thistle: it simply spreads the root pieces around the garden, where they will re-establish and grow.

Why Not Get Rid of Thistle with Herbicides?

If you’ve googled this topic, you’ve no doubt read the recommendations to apply herbicides such glyphosate. And truth be told, that’s the best way to kill thistle: till deeply – more deeply than the average home gardener’s tiller can manage – and then spray the entire land with a plant-killing herbicide, to abolish the root pieces broken up and buried by the tilling process.

But, as an organic gardener, I have numerous problems with this solution. Such an herbicide is going exactly nowhere near my organic vegetable garden, and unless you specifically combine the herbicide application with a deep-root-disrupting tillage, the herbicide isn’t going to be effective anyway.

This a bit of a scorched earth approach, and I cannot, in good conscience, recommend it.

Don’t be lulled into believing that you can selectively apply an herbicide to the plant only to solve the problem. The herbicide will, indeed, kill the greenery above ground, but very likely not the root.

Tools For Removing Thistle

You likely already have all you need to deal with a thistle invasion:

Tools needed to remove thistle from your garden, without chemicals
  • A heavy glove for your dominant hand, preferably with thick suede palms and fingers, to protect your hand from thistle’s numerous and thin thorns.
  • A sturdy hand shovel with a pointy tip and a long blade.
  • A garden knife with a long blade (optional – can be used in place of the hand shovel).

How to Dig Up Thistle

The goal of banishing thistle from your garden is to, of course, remove the plant in its entirety. Which is easier said than done, given the previous description of their root system.

So, the best way is to attack the plants is while they’re young and have get-at-able root systems.

Steps to remove thistle from your garden.
  • With your shovel or garden knife, slice straight down into the soil, about two inches away from the plant.
  • If the soil is nice and loose, you’ll probably be able to skip to the next step of prying, but if the ground is tight and compact, make another slice or two around the plant in a circle.
  • Insert the shovel or knife again, deeply, and slowly pry the soil up from underneath the plant. It will likely not free itself from the ground yet.
  • When the plant has clearly been destabilized from its foundation, grasp the base of the leaves with a gloved hand and gently begin pulling straight upward.
  • The taproot is thick, and you’ll be able to sense resistance as you pull. If the root feels like it’s stubbornly holding onto the earth, release your grip, go in more deeply with the shovel, and try again until freed.
  • Continue digging out each thistle individually. It will quickly become muscle-memory, and you’ll be able to clear a plant in 15 seconds or so.

If you hear a distinct “snap” while pulling on the plant, kind of like breaking pretzel stick in half, that’s probably the root breaking off. Inevitably, this will happen, especially with older plants with long, thick roots.

If you have room amongst your wanted plants in the garden, you can go hunting for the snapped off root by digging deeper.

Young thistle plants and root systems
These thistles were less than one week above ground, with already-prominent taproots and even lateral roots.

Controlling Thistle in the Long Term

Managing a thistle invasion is an ongoing prospect. You can clear a plot of thistle, only to have it pop back up later on the outskirts, thanks to stray roots.

One of the best non-chemical ways to manage a cleared area in your vegetable garden is lay down a weed blocking or landscaping fabric. Depending on what you’re growing, you can cover the entire garden and cut holes in the fabric to accommodate what you’re growing (say, pepper plants or zucchini or onions).

Or, if you need more sections of exposed soil, place the cloth in walking pathways and between rows of crops. Anything to reduce the amount of exposed soil that you have to keep an eagle eye on. Some thistle might still break through the cloth, but the larger area you can block, the less opportunity the thistle will have to break through to the sun and establish a new plant.

The community garden where I have a plot or two had a thistle invasion some years ago. It took several seasons of diligent weeding to get it under control. The photos from this post were taken at that community garden, so, you can see that it’s still an ongoing situation. The challenge there is that not every garden participant is as committed to weeding as we’d like, so, we’ll probably never be rid of it completely. But it’s manageable with a few minutes of digging every week.

How To Get Ride of Thistle

Up-close photo of a young thistle plant

The best way to rid your garden of thistle is by hand, with a shovel. Chemicals are not effective if the plant has established a lateral root system (and if you're not willing to nuke the entire bed, deeply). Here's how to get the plant out of the soil, roots and all.

Active Time 1 minute
Total Time 1 minute

Tools

  • One heavy glove (suede fingers and palm recommended) for your dominate hand.
  • One hand shovel or garden knife with a point end and a minimum 6" blade

Instructions

  1. Slice vertically into the soil, using the shovel or garden knife on four sides of the plant How to dig up thistle with a shovel or garden knife.
  2. With the soil loosened around the plant, insert the shovel again into the soil at angle below the plant, and carefully pry upwards. Make sure the soil below feels loose; otherwise you might break off the plant.
  3. When the thistle appears loose and ready to pull, grasp the base of the leaves with a gloved hand and gently pull straight up. If you feel resistence, stop and use the shovel to loosen the soil. If you hear a distinct "snap," that means the root has broken off.
  4. Inspect the tip of the taproot. If it's broken off, it will likely have been straight across the root, like a knife cut. Otherwise, it will have an irregular shape, possibly with fiber-like rootlings extending from it. If you suspect you've left any of the root behind, dig into the soil to upset any attachment it might have made. Tip of a thistle's taproot

    Notes

    The time indicated above is the max per plant. It's actually quite easy to develop a fast and efficient approach for removing individual plants in just seconds.

    Did you try this gardening project?

    If this site has inspired you to try something new in your garden, share a photo of your creation on Instagram and tag me @sproutedgarden!

    © Karen @ SproutedGarden
    Category: Garden Solutions
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