(bright music) >>I love growing mint, from inviting pollinators to my garden, to allowing me to have some of the best fresh tea and adding some different spices and minty flavors to some of the dishes that I cook.

But the key thing that I also have to remember is that can't just put it anywhere in your garden, because it can take over, and it'll grow faster than some of your other plants, and it'll start to smother 'em out.

Here's mountain mint, and it's tons, meaning hundreds of seed pods on top.

I have lemon balm over here, and there's so many seeds in there.

If I don't want the seeds to blow all over the garden and re-root themselves, or re-seed themselves in other locations, I need to make sure that I snip off this whole head.

I'm just going for now snip off just this one, and I need to make sure that I drop it down into the soil.

As I drop it into the soil.

I can possibly ensure that it's not being carried by the wind or taken in other places and throughout the garden.

But also my peppermint, the root systems are so resilient that they just travel throughout the soil, and I have to dig them up in order to control their growth.

So when you wanna grow some mint, consider a potted plant that allows the water to leach out of the bottom of it.

Another key thing is I like to harvest my mint.

And as I harvest my mint, I'll put it in a container, keep it fresh, and I'll strip off all of these leaves.

And as I'm stripping off these leaves to use in whatever my dish is, I can't just throw these vines anywhere in the garden because when they touch soil and they're still moist, they'll start growing again, and they'll grow that nice deep root system.

And unfortunately, I'll end up having some of these peppermint plants growing all over the garden.

Often in late winter and fall, you'll find that your mint starts to die back, and it'll look like the vines are completely dried out, and you'll be tempted to throw your plants away.

Don't do that because you'll throw it somewhere in your yard or maybe in the compost bin, but what you'll find is early spring, it'll start to grow back, and it'll grow in some places where you didn't intend for it to grow.

So always be vigilant, snip off your seed heads, harvest your mint continuously.

If you find it growing somewhere, dig it up, repot it in raised beds, and you'll find that you'll be enjoying mint for a long time and it doesn't take over your garden.

Happy gardening.