A good use for a weed

Posted on May 21, 2008 | 462 Comments

I don’t know why I never thought of doing this before, but…yesterday I made some tea out of some wildling mint.

Mint. Never been a big fan, frankly. I’m even less of one now that I’ve inherited a rather unstoppable patch next to the chicken coop. I swear: if they’re considering switchgrass as an alternative to corn to produce ethanol, they should put mint on the list too. Just when you THINK you’ve pulled (hand dug) your last patch of it, it rises up somewhere else a good four feet away. Worse than blackberries, I tell you!

Yesterday I was waiting for a fax, so I stepped into the garden to weed. (Isn’t that the way YOU wait for a fax?) I checked in on my one major Area of High Shame, the zone between the greenhouse and the coop, and did the tiniest bit of mint-pulling. I took a bunch in the house with me, clipped off the roots, washed it, and then boiled it for 10 minutes in ~3 cups of water. With a bit of sugar, it was…not bad!