Mint condition

Don't get me wrong, I seriously love mint. Not the fancy purple this, variegated that but honest, good old-fashioned garden mint. Mentha corblastmethatgrewquick in Latin.

Mint sauce, sprigs of it rolled in a neck of lamb, bunches dropped in a Pimms - ahh, bliss. But it's got a darker side to its character to rival Attila the Hun if you don't keep your mincers pinned.

It likes nothing better than invading, sending roots far and wide like a tasty kind of twitch grass. So you need to keep it well-contained. This bad boy bed I've built (above) for it should do the trick.

It's going to struggle to get through inch-thick scaff boards which can support a 15 stone roofer. The rest of the bed's going to be devoted to better-behaved herbs I can trust not to start getting snarky and invade their neighbours.

The mint seemed to like it when I dug a clump out of a pot and wanged it slap bang in the middle. Despite the frosts, it kicked into life almost straight away. As in yeah, bring it on.

I pruned it back some more, just to show it who's boss, and new leaves appeared within days, as it started exploring its new home like it was already probing for possible escape routes.