Review ('08) Catnip, Oregano and Mints

More review of the results of our ’08 garden. The catnip was grown from seed, as was one of the oregano plants. The others were starts from various sources.

Catnip (1 small bed)
Catnip is a mint. I didn’t know this until I started growing it. I planted a couple of seeds in a pot, and transplanted these into a bed which I planned to share with another herb. Luckily, I never got around to figuring out what to split the space with, because the catnip would have killed it off. It took over the entire bed, and was, by far, the most productive of all the herbs I planted. Unfortunately, our cat did not care so much for the homegrown organic stuff, but our neighbor’s cat certainly did.

Oregano (1 small bed, 2 plants)
I started the oregano from seed, but only a pitiful sproutling or two emerged. These stayed small for most of the summer. I didn't even know they were still there when I came home with the starts from the store, Lowe’s I think. After a while, though, I noticed I had two oregano plants in the bed. One was large and took over the space (Lowe's) and one that was small but growing (from seed). I could not detect a difference in flavor, but the super oregano was probably a hybrid. We saved no seeds from the other.

Spearmint (2 plants) Chocolate Mint (1 plant) Pineapple Mint (1 plant)
My friend Steve brought two plants he'd dug up from his spearmint bed. It seemed that no matter how much he neglected it (build a deck over it, never water it) that bed of spearmint perservered. In fact, I often heard him talk of it as if it were a nuisance. I planted the two plants he gave me beside the house in the preexisting beds, only with different results. Instead of having mint everywhere, the plants struggled. When I cut the top 4 inches off the stalks, the rest of the stalk would turn brown and die. The plants struggled and never did well.

Similar results with the chocolate mint, planted down the bed about 4 feet away. I bought this plant at the local farmer's market. It smelled great, but never took off, and, like the spearmint, did not like being cut.

The pineapple mint died right away. I planted it in a sunny spot, but did not prep the soil, and kind of forgot about it. I am going to try to grow kiwi there next time.