If you're ever going to grow anything like spearmint or peppermint, do yourself a favour and grow it in a pot. The word "invasive" is a little bit on the light side for some mints. I have heard it said "the only two things that could survive worldwide nuclear war are cockroaches and mint".

About 6 or so years ago I got a small spearmint plant when I started container gardening, and on my Mother's suggestion in the fall I transplanted it to one of the flower beds right next to the deck. The next spring it grew well and I was delighted, since I like mint teas, except it did more than merely "grow well". It sent out roots and shoots all around itself, spreading quite fast. So I transplanted it from the flower bed to the eastern side of the house, but it had sent roots underneath the deck where we couldn't dig them up and it was 2 or 3 years until we stopped finding spearmint shoots to pull up. And on the side of the house, well, I can no longer tell where I originally transplanted it to because it has almost taken over that flower bed. Good thing the chrysanthemums and the lamb's ear (another member of the mint family) are hardy plants.

Anyways, what got me on to this was that today was harvest time for some of my herbs. I cut off large amounts of bergamot, spearmint and fennel, as well as a little bit of rosemary. The only reason I didn't harvest my peppermint, catnip and lemon balm was because I ran out of space on the dining room table for drying them out. :-) As you can tell, what I grow in my containers are mostly plants of the mint family — catnip, lemon balm, peppermint, orange mint bergamot, spearmint, pineapple mint, grapefruit mint, greek oregano, english lavender and persian catmint. But I also have cherry tomatoes, cubanelle, hungarian wax, purple bell and hot cherry peppers, ginger, chives, onion, garlic, fennel, chamomile, bloody sorrel and a licorice plant.

Some day I would love to have big garden instead of just containers out on the deck and the occasional plant in my Mother's flower beds.