De-mint-ed

I should have listened to my mother.

Hubby and I planted mint in our vegetable garden. After we'd done the work, she warned us that mint was very invasive. We didn't want to undo what we'd done and we left that plant in our garden. How foolish was that!

Mint sends out wicked runners. All those runners must be removed from the garden or the plants will grow back. If we had listened and ripped it out, we would have saved ourselves much grief and work. Instead, every spring I "de-mint" the garden. When it's done, I say I am "de-mint-ed." I was demented to plant it in the first place!

The first year we de-mint-ed, we had to get fill dirt from a construction site because our garden had a crater in it. That evil plant had even sent runners under our sidewalk to infiltrate another garden. The crater's contents went into our driveway. The Frugal Gardener hates waste. We're still dumping our precious garden soil into the drive because of mint contamination, although the loads get smaller each year.

Unfortunately for us, we planted the mint right on our property line. It spread into the neighbor's lawn. The neighbor thinks the stuff is great and tends it. Therefore, it spreads right back into our garden. See the mint poking through the fence? I can't dig up the mint that's right on the line because my shovel hits concrete. So I'm stuck with it.

Yes, I definitely should have listened to my mother. Don't plant mint!