There’s really no need to keep buying fresh mint at the grocery store. If you’ve got a little bit of starter material, you can easily grow your own endless supply right at home. It’s a total breeze for gardeners of any skill level, but there are a few pro tips to keep in mind to ensure success. Here’s how to get started.
Three Ways to Propagate Your Mint
Depending on what you have on hand or what sounds easiest to you, you can propagate mint using these three methods:
- By runners (offshoots)
- By cuttings
- By seed
Runners (Offshoots)
Mint is a vigorous grower and loves to send out little runners that can easily become independent plants. To try this, just find a young shoot near the base of the plant, clear a little soil away to see the roots, and snip it away from the mother plant with a sharp knife. Get it into its new home immediately and give it a good soak. Make sure to keep the soil nice and moist for the first few days while it settles in.
Cuttings
For hybrids like peppermint, cuttings are actually the way to go. That said, you can use this method for pretty much any variety of mint you’ve got in the garden.
- Snip your cuttings in July or August, just before the plant starts to bloom.
- Aim for stems about 6 to 8 inches long that don’t have any flower buds on them.
- Strip the leaves off the bottom half of the stem.
- Pop the cuttings into a glass of water.
- Place them in a warm, shady spot to let the roots develop.
- Change the water regularly to keep it fresh.
- Once you see healthy roots, they’re ready to be planted!
Pro Tip:
If you’re the impatient type, you can actually stick freshly cut stems directly into the garden bed. Just make sure you’ve picked out the perfect spot for them to thrive.
Sowing Seeds
You can find mint seeds at just about any garden center or home improvement store. If you already have mint in your garden, you can even harvest seeds yourself after the flowers fade. Just a heads-up, though: some varieties—especially hybrids—don’t grow well from seed (or at all). For those, you’ll want to stick to runners or cuttings. If you are starting from seed indoors, here’s the game plan:
- Start sowing as early as March.
- Use pots filled with a mix of standard potting soil and a bit of sand.
- Moisten the soil first.
- Scatter the seeds on top and press them down gently.
- Don’t cover them with soil—mint needs light to germinate!
- Cover the pots with plastic wrap to hold in moisture (but vent it occasionally).
- Keep them in a warm spot (at least 68°F) and keep the soil damp.
- Once they’re about 2 inches tall, thin them out or move them to individual pots.
- By mid-May, they’ll be ready to plant outside in the garden or a large container.
