June 07, 2008
Much Mint
One of the delights I have found in our garden this spring is the presence of mint. I knew that whoever planted the garden last had planted a lot of herbs. I’ve always liked the idea of having a herb garden, but because I can only identify chives, I didn’t know what to do with everything that was already planted. This spring, after cleaning out the garden last fall, two of the herbs came back. Chives and mint.
The chives I knew. I have since learned that there are at least two types of chives, garlic and regular. The ones we have are garlic chives. They are a bit stronger than regular chives. I also have a bit of regular chives too, I picked them up from an empty lot down the road.
The mint was easy to identify by smell. Now that I know I have mint in the garden, I have been doing a little bit of research about it. Did you know that mint is good for digestion? There is a reason that restaurants give out mints after meals. I never knew that.
A neighbour that lives on our street also showed me where there is some spearmint growing in the back yard between our yards. Since no on is living there right now, I decided to help myself to a bit of it. I actually found two kinds of mint in the neighbour’s back yard.
Did you know that there are so many kinds of mint that even experts may have a hard time identifying them? That is because they cross pollinate so easily.
I also read that mint could help ease menstrual cramps. So I tried it this past month. I did help for a while, and I did take less medication, but it wasn’t the miracle drug I was hoping it would be. I’ll try again next month. Until then, I think I’ll learn how to use it in baking.
Here is one of many great web pages on mint: Herbalcuisine.
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