This past summertime , I ’ve been working at a product greenhouse , where I help grow 35 different varieties ofculinary herb . uncalled-for to say , my palate has been thrill with all sorts of raw and interesting herbal smell , some of the most interesting of which have been mint .
The mint family ( Lamiaceae ) include obvious plants , like spearmint and peppermint , as well as some of your other favourite herbs , likebasil , thyme , rosemary andlavender . Within this syndicate , the genusMentha — what most of us think of as “ mint proper”—includes between 13 and 18 specie that readily interbreed with one another .
As summertime tip down and fruits are being harvested , fruity - flavored hatful make a refreshing plus to everything from crank - cold potable to savory hot dishes . With a few exceptions , most are perennial , so fall is a good time to scope out sales in garden essence and plant mint for next year . A word to the judicious , however : Most mess diffuse laterally and make clonal patch , so keep them in a container unless you are looking for an aggressiveground covering .
Here are some of my favorite yield - flavored mints you might prove growing .
Apple Mint, aka Pineapple Mint (Mentha suaveolens)
This mint has woolly-haired leave , and also come in variegated cultivars : a motley with ashen - bordered leaves is ordinarily forebode pineapple plant mint .
Banana Mint (Mentha arvensis‘Banana’)
Banana plenty smells more like saturated banana flavoring – isoamyl acetate – than most banana . It has a creeping form and is more or less constantly in bloom during the develop season .
Ginger Mint (Menthaxgracilis)
While not “ fruity ” per se , pep mint pairs well with fruity hatful in tot a little savoury spearmint - comparable element to the mix .
Grapefruit Mint (Menthaxpiperita‘Grapefruit’)
The pink - tinged parting on this upright - farm mint smell and taste manifest of zesty citrus . It ’s a hybrid derive from pineapple mint .
Hillary’s Sweet Lemon Mint (Mentha xdulcia citreus‘Hillary’s’)
A hybrid of apple wad and caustic lime heap developed in 1993 and named for Hillary Clinton , this downy - leaved plant packs a astonishingly potent Citrus limon flavor .
Orange Mint, aka Bergamot Mint (Menthaxpiperita citrata)
As the two names for this mint hybrid would suggest , it smell out and tastes somewhere in between a fresh orange and a cup of Earl Grey tea .
Strawberry Mint, aka Mojito Mint (Menthaxpiperitavar. citrata ‘Strawberry’)
It ’s sometimes eldritch how intimately plant life compounds can resemble each other : like banana mint , strawberry mint smells improbably similar to it ’s namesake .
