How to Remove Mint From Soil

Mint is a herbaceous perennial that spreads aggressively.

Fragrant, delicious and tenacious, mint is a desirable culinary herb and a potentially invasive weed in the garden. Mint is a perennial plant with aggressively spreading roots. The roots send out runners under the soil that grow into new plants. Given a little time, mint roots create a dense mat of runner roots that smother less vigorous neighbors. Removing an overgrown mint colony takes several years of diligence. When you pull out the plants, inevitably a few pieces of root are left behind, and each root section grows into a new plant.

Things You'll Need

• Garden fork
• Gloves
• Weed bin

Instructions

1. Slide a garden fork under a mint plant, and lift it out of the soil. Pull out as much of the roots as possible by gently teasing them out of the soil without breaking them.

2. Continue digging out the mint plants from the soil until all the plants are cleared. Place the plants in a weed bin, and take them to the landfill, or put them out for weed pickup. Thrown on the compost pile, mint has a way of getting back to the garden.

3. Pull out all new mint plants as soon as they emerge. Keep a close eye on the area, and get them before they start to spread. It may take several years to get mint out of the soil in a garden area.

Tips & Warnings

• You can have mint in the garden without it taking over. Plant it in a plastic pot, and sink the pot into a hole in the herb garden. Or just grow it in pots on a sunny patio.

• When removing mint from the soil, cut the leafy foliage off first, and take it to the kitchen. It can be dried for later use or added fresh to salads, soups and other dishes or steeped into fresh mint tea.

References

• Utah State University; Mint in the Garden; Kristie Buckland and Dan Drost; March 2009
• Arizona Herb Association: How to Trap a Mint
• University of Texas at Austin: Ask Mr. Smarty Plants