Tomato feed on last year mint?

[ClayGarden]

Can i use the tomato feed i have for other things, like mint i have thats been hardened through the winter in a container and now springing back to life? Or do i need to get some generic feeder.

[busylizzie]

I'm most definitely not an expert but first off - do you really need to give your mint some food? Mint tends to be a bit of a rampant plant anyway, so personally I wouldn't bother. Mine lives outside and I just pretty much ignore it and there's always plenty of it!

Secondly, I wouldn't have thought tomato food is going to be very helpful for it anyway because the nutrients in it are geared towards fruit production, not leaf production which is what you want for mint.

[ClayGarden]

Right thanks. The only reason i wanted to feed it was to give it a bit of a kick start, it isn't very big right now at all. I've get some generic feed then to help with leaf growth.

[Flummery]

I'd leave it to come in its own good time. No-one's mint is very big just now.

[TonyF]

Mint can be slow to restart for the new season - don't get caught up in the 'must have now' mentality, it's not the way that plants work.

I wouldn't give it any food at all, if anything just move it into a warmer part of the garden if it's in a pot. If it's in the ground, just leave it, several of my mints haven't done much yet but then they hadn't done much this time last year or the year before.

[queen of the cobs]

my mint is just starting to put a spurt on, I think, (and I'm a bit further sounth than you). Hang in there and I bet you'll see some growth soon enough. I've never fed mint.

[ClayGarden]

Mint can be slow to restart for the new season - don't get caught up in the 'must have now' mentality, it's not the way that plants work.

Well i realise that, but being such a noob i didn't think know whether after the first year in a pot nutrients may be lacking now. There was no 'must have now' mentality in my post.

my mint is just starting to put a spurt on, I think, (and I'm a bit further sounth than you). Hang in there and I bet you'll see some growth soon enough. I've never fed mint.

Cheers, mine has started spurting too, just wondered if it needed a feed at all as its in a container.

[Two_Sheds]

You don't need to feed mint at all. What you could do is scrape off the top inch of old compost and replace with fresh new compost

[ClayGarden]

You don't need to feed mint at all. What you could do is scrape off the top inch of old compost and replace with fresh new compost

Cheers, whats the difference between the two though? What would the replacing top of compost do, that feeding it wouldn't? Sorry a relatively new gardener compare to a lot round here