This K-Pop Idol Grows Mint Leaves at Home, You Can Do It Too!

Many people have been drawn to gardening over the last two years, including K-Pop idols. Some of the idols who are known for their love of planting are NCT’s Taeyong and Sungchan, TXT, SF9’s Jaeyoon, SHINee’s Key, and EPEX. 

Through several online platforms such as V-Live and YouTube, they shared planting activities to give their fans positive energy especially during the global pandemic. 

As seen in the videos, these idols grew crops by using available spaces, either on the rooftop of their offices, at home or in their apartments. 

Take SHINee’s Key for example. He was seen growing plants by utilizing a vacant space at his house. He  seemingly cleaned, planted and took care of his plants fluently. Some of the plants he grew were mint leaves, rosemary, and leeks. 

How to Grow Mint Leaves at Home 

Watching our idols growing crops might motivate us to do the same thing at home. It would feel nice to plant what your favorite idols have grown. 

So, how can we grow mint leaves just like what SHINee’s Key did at home? 

Growing mint leaves is actually not difficult. This type of plant does not require a large space. So, it is very possible if this plant is grown at home. You can follow these following steps: 

1. Prepare the soil

First, you have to prepare the soil. You can plant mint leaves directly into the ground or in a pot. But before that, you need to pay attention to the conditions of the soil. 

Choose a moist land, with an altitude of 150-900 meters above sea level. Make sure that the soil is loose and fertile, and the drainage system of the pot is also supportive. Choose soil that has a PH level of 5.5-7. Mint leaves will thrive and have lots of leaves when planted in an area with 2000-4000 mm/year of rainfall. 

2. Choose the seeds

You can buy seeds from a farm shop. If you already have one mature mint tree, you can simply multiply the seeds. 

The seeds can be multiplied by cutting off the top of the leaf about 1 cm close to the branch. Put the cutting in a glass of water to speed up the growth, then place the glass in a warm place until the roots appear. When the roots appear, it means your seeds are ready to be planted. 

3. Planting mint leaves

You can plant the seeds in polybags or pots. You need to fill them first with a mixture of soil and manure. Then you can plant the seeds in pots with a depth of 3/4. After that, leave them for 4-5 days. 

How to Make Your Mint Leaves Grow Healthy

After planting the mint seeds, you need to take care of your plants so they can thrive and grow healthy. Make sure to water them regularly. For mint leaves, you only need to water them once a day. Watch also the condition of the soil when watering, it should not be too much or too little. Next is fertilization. To get quality plants you have to pay close attention to the application of fertilizer. You can apply organic or inorganic fertilizers. 

For organic fertilizer, you can use manure with a dose of 30 tons/ha. This type of fertilizer can be applied once a week. As for the inorganic fertilizers, you can use urea fertilizer by adjusting to the dose at each age of the plant. 

In addition to fertilization, planting mint leaves requires you to do weeding. You can do this around the crop areas once a week. 

Several types of pests can also cause damage to mint leaves, such as leaf-eating caterpillars and red mites. To anticipate this, you can spray vegetable insecticides. After doing the treatment you will be able to harvest mint leaves in the 3^rd or 4^th month. The harvesting can be done when the plants are 50-70 percent flowering. Harvesting activities should be done at 08.00-10.00 in the morning. 

You can see how easy it is to plant mint leaves which have been grown by your favorite Kpop idol. Moreover, you can get benefits from the crops and do positive activities at the same time while at home. Good luck!

_{Written by: Renat Sofie}