Plant of the Day - Spearmint

Mentha spicata

We have discovered that there is a peculiar history to our "English Garden": one of our predecessors installed a beautiful garden among reddish bricks, while another has installed a raised bed atop it.

We think the original layout was on the whole better thought out, although there was some intelligence also applied to the raised bed. However, most of the surviving plants are in peculiar locations, and many of the more interesting ones are rooted at the lower level in any case.

It's hard to know where to begin with the census of our amazing biodiversity on our little corner plot, but it is clear that some archaeology is necessary in the formerly sunken, later raised garden.

Although we have some spectacularly beautiful and strange plants

I'd also like to proceed to understand all the more mundane plants, and will take them up in the order we attend to them.

The mint in the corner of the English Garden is vigourous and plentiful, and Irene is intent on proceeding with the digging there, so mint is the plant of the day.

There are a huge variety of plants in the mint family

PlantNet identifies our mint plantation as spearmint. I'm brewing a tea with it and will report back to you shortly. 

Wikipedia informs me:

Spearmint grows well in nearly all temperate climates.^[29] Gardeners often grow it in pots or planters due to its invasive, spreading rhizomes.^[30]

Oops. Irene is moving some of the specimens to the raised herb bed and destroying the rest, but it may present a problem in the revived English garden.

Spearmint has been used since ancient times and there are biblical references to it. It's pretty clearly an Old World plant but exact origins appear obscure.

In addition to tea, of course it mixes well with yogurt and salad dressings.

Tea update: quite nice, mellow, not dramatically different from commercial peppermint tea. I used about a half dozen leaves, steeped in a half cup of hot water.