Last edited by shiny on November 11, 2026. View history
Peppermint
A variety of mint
How to sow peppermint: Direct seed indoors or outside
Sun requirement for peppermint: Plant in Partial Sun
Mint is a perennial herb with a distinctive taste. It's stems are square-shaped and it has pink, purple, or white flowers. Peppermint, ginger mint, and large apple mint are hybrids of mint. Mint is often grown in pots to prevent it from overtaking the garden with its invasive, spreading rhizome root structure. It's leaves are most aromatic before the plant flowers and can be used fresh, dried, or frozen. Mint's strongly scented leaves confuse the pests of carrots, tomatoes, alliums, and brassicas, and deter flea beetles.
A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.
Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.
For peppermint, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 4°C and a shortest growing cycle of 40 days at its best temperature, about 640 growing degree days to a first harvest.
Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your peppermint will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.
Only plantings by members who have set their locations are shown.
by shiny,
There are so very many edible weeds in our garden.
Pūhā galore of course - which can we draped over roasting meat (too much work) or steamed to remove the bitterness and then pretend it's spinach for eggs bene. It's been "what's for dinner&q…
mint
peppermint
There are no seeds available to trade on Growstuff right now.
If sown now, expect a first harvest in about 40 to 330 days.
From the growing cycle in the FAO EcoCrop database, which is the same wherever it is grown.
Data from the FAO EcoCrop database for Mentha piperita L.
| Family / Taxonomy | Magnoliopsida Asteridae Lamiales Labiatae |
|---|---|
| Killing temperature | growth: 0 °C, rest: -8 °C |
| Life form | herb |
| Life span | perennial |
| Habit | erect |
| Optimal soil depth | shallow (20-50 cm) |
| Optimal soil texture | medium, organic |
| Optimal soil fertility | high |
| Optimal soil drainage | well (dry spells) |
| Optimal soil salinity | low (<4 dS/m) |
| Photoperiod | short day (<12 hours), neutral day (12-14 hours), long day (>14 hours) |
Resources outside Growstuff.
pomegranate
green zebra tomato
Photos
shiny harvested not specified.