Growing Catnip

Our cats love catnip. They love it so much that you can’t leave the container out where they can get to it or all you’ll hear all day (or night!) is them knocking it around the room, trying to get into it.

I’ve attempted to grow my own in the past using a little DIY container from the pet store, but the cats always seek it out before it gets a chance to grow much so I gave up on that and decided to stick with the dried and pre-packaged stuff.

Now that it’s spring you can find fresh catnip pretty much anywhere – garden centers, pet stores, etc., and I’m thinking about giving it another shot – this time outside (though we have a few roaming cats in the neighborhood so it might not work out there either).

Catnip is a perennial in the mint family, which means it’ll come back year after year from one planting and it seeds itself. It can grow up to three feet high and produces pretty little blue flowers in the summer. If you’re growing catnip for your cats make sure you don’t get ornamental catnip – it will not affect your cat! You want plain old common catnip.

Catnip is an herb and requires full sunlight, adequate moisture, and good soil. It’ll thrive in pots or as part of a full garden and it’s also pretty much pest-free – aside from the roaming neighborhood cats mentioned above!

It can be harvested when the stems get to about a foot high and cut it as you need it. Cats can eat the leaves fresh, or you can let them dry out, crumble them up and store in an airtight container.

Have you ever tried to grow fresh catnip? Did it work out?

[images: flickr; flickr]