Our niece recently moved in with us (again), yay! She’s been a bit under the weather with the different climate and adjusting to the altitude and all so she’s wanted tea, mint tea to be exact. Every time we go to the store she checks out the little potted flowers and plants thinking about grabbing a mint flower.  I have a plethora of flavored teas but she’s stuck on the mint.

  In honor of her cravings, I thought I’d write about that little flower this week. Apparently, the mint family is quite large and includes rosemary, lavender, thyme, catnip, spearmint, and peppermint. I didn’t realize that rosemary and lavender were included in the mint category; I’m not sure I ever really thought about what family they were in but I know I didn’t think it was mint. According to backyardnature.net the thing that separates mint plants from others is that the ovary is divided into four nutlets as well as often having strong-smelling herbs, opposite leaves, squarish stems, and irregular flowers. All of that is handy to know if you actually look at the construction of the plant; for those of us that are new to this whole thing then the little tag stuck in the side of the pot will let us know exactly what we need to!

  I found a great little mint growing guide online that walks you through every step of growing, transplanting, splitting, and harvesting. A few things to keep in mind: mint needs copious amounts of water and can stand a ton of sunlight. The author also advises repotting the plant each year and dividing it into four pieces.  It doesn’t seem like a hard plant to grow so I may be printing the handy little guide from patrickdepinguin.com and picking up a little potted plant for my niece.