Mints, Part 2

The mints I showed before, in Part 1, aren’t the only ones in the raised bed. I didn’t buy a couple that didn’t really appeal to me last year (Banana Mint and Grapefruit Mint) but here are the others I did get. I just like having them around to smell. In addition, I planted  in a perennial bed one plant of a hardy mint which I am calling Alaska Mint. (It is probably Mentha avensis or Mentha canadensis.) It is trying to crowd out the perennials, though right now of course it is not as large as the transplants.

One of my favorite uses for mint is to chop the leaves fine and add them to unflavored Greek yogurt along with honey, walnuts and a bit of lemon juice.

This time I’m using a slide show; click on any small image to get to the show.

Peppermint (Mentha piperata)

Ginger Mint (Mentha x gracilis)

Spearmint (Mentha spicata)

Mojito Mint (Mentha x villosa)

Apple Mint (Mentha rotundifolia)

Lime Mint

Kentucky Colonel (Mentha spicata)

Chocolate Mint (Mentha piperata)

Alaska Hardy Mint

And the first rose of summer, photographed June 3. This is a wild rose, of the kind that makes up the undergrowth of our birch-aspen forests. I’ve never succeeded in transplanting one, but they sucker like mad and do their best to spread from the birch forest to the lawn.

Alaska Wild Rose

North Pole Weather 7/8/13

The sun rose this morning at 3:31 and will set 20 hours and 48 minutes later at 12:19 tomorrow morning. We’re losing 5 minutes a day, and a week from now the sun will be rising and setting on the same day. The sun is still high in the sky, though, more than 45° at noon.

Mints (no two are the same variety) with weed-stop fabric. I’m missing two I really like (lime and strawberry) as they weren’t available this year; banana and grapefruit are new.

The weather has remained dry with areas of smoke, but the forecast suggests increasing showers and even rain next week. I certainly hope so; there are evacuations strongly suggested within 20 miles of my house.

I’m trying to get weed-stop fabric around the mints and other herbs, and flowers planted in the hollows in the cement blocks making up the raised beds. I doubt I’ll feel like it once chemo starts, so I’m getting as much as I can done while I’m still feeling decent. At least the intense heat seems to have faded – forecast high temperatures for the next week are high 60’s to low 70’s.

I need to drag out the other hoses and water more than the vegetable beds and potted plants. The lilies are barely breaking the ground – probably lack of water. But I may not feel up to watering once I start chemo, and I don’t want to start if I’m not continuing.

A Quick Weather Update

Normally, I’d have the mints, among the cold-hardiest of the annuals I grow, in the ground by now. This year I’ve barely been able to start hardening them, and the ground certainly is not diggable. Yes, that’s the remains of last October’s snow behind them. Yes, I know mints are perennials. Most aren’t here. The lone exception is what I call Alaskan mint (though it’s not native) which has flowers at the leaf axils instead of terminally. But I like to have as many kinds of mint as possible, and that means buy the plants early, while selections are good.

I miss the strawberry mint, though. It was my favorite last year, but this year it seems unavailable.