Mint: An Herbal Ally Taking Over Your Garden

A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook about her garden and said something like “the mint thinks it should be a mint garden.” If you have ever grown mint, I am sure you will agree.

I grow a form of lemon mint given to me by dear friend and natural gardener Yiannis Kokkinos, peppermint and cat mint, or catnip, which is making a mint garden of the entire west side of my house. I always knew you could put it in iced tea and that mint jelly accompanies lamb (the Greeks are puzzled by that because that is clearly oregano’s job) and that you could get mint tea in most restaurants. Until I started studying herbalism, I did not really explore how to use mint to support health.

Although the mint family is large and includes basil, lavender, oregano and rosemary, I am primarily focusing on the mints with the word “mint” in their name: peppermint, cat mint, lemon mint and spearmint.

You can usually tell what plant is in the mint family, not just by the smell, but by the distinctly square stem of mints.

You can use mint fresh or dried. To dry mint, cut a bunch, wash it off, tie a string around it and hang it up in a cool place until it dries. You can also dry mint in your dehydrator. The National Center for Home Food Preservation says that you just put the mint in a single layer in your dehydrator, usually on a lower heat like 115, and dehydrate for 1 – 4 hours, watching for the mint to get to the crumble stage. Then put the product in a jar and store, usually with a little desiccant packet in with it. I have heard that drying catnip in the dehydrator will drive your cats wild. Wonder and Marvel will soon find out.

My favorite cooking use for mint is to freshen up winter tomato-based cooking. In Minnesota we go a long time without a good tomato. One time I accidently put a handful of mint leaves into a lasagna recipe, instead of the handful of oregano I meant to put in. Once I had stirred it in, I could smell it was mint so I just added the oregano. It was delicious. My guests ate it up.

Most people use mint as a tea with a little honey. You can use your own dried mint or buy it from many sources. Here are some of the traditional uses of mint as an herbal support.

1) Mint has long been used to support digestion. It may help calm acid reflux, ease stomach pain, deflate gas, reduce nausea and just relax the stomach. For all my friends who have tricky stomachs and digestion, I recommend a cup of peppermint tea every day.1 I Many of the hypermobile people I know have some stomach issues and regular mint tea may be able to help.

2) Better sleep. I would recommend that cup of tea be drunk in the evening as mint can be calming and help you sleep a bit better.

3) Soothe sunburn. Cool mint tea applied to sunburn as be a soother. 2

Mint has been used for centuries with little downside. WebMD is usually my quick check on side effects. Other than a few people who are allergic to mint, there are few likely issues. However, WebMD does point out some interactions with medicines you might need to be aware of here. 3 One thing I want everyone to know is to be careful with any herbal essential oil. Essential oils are not meant to be eaten and even direct application to your skin can cause a burn. I do love essential oils but they are concentrated way beyond what is natural and can cause problems.

If you would like to talk with me about issues you may have with your own health, contact me. I would like to share some of the plants and practices that have helped me and others.

This information is not intended to take the place of personalized medical counseling, diagnosis and/or treatment by a trained physician. Herbs and other botanicals are presently classified by the Food and Drug Administration as foods, not as medicines.

1 Materia Medica on Digestive System Herbs. Green Wisdom School and Natural & Botanical Medicine.

2 Boyles, Margaret. “Living Naturally.” The Old Farmers Almanac.

3 Web MD