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Watch Your (Garden) Mint!


sshorter

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Grow your own and don't use pesticides. Mint doesn't usually suffer much insect damage anyway.
In my experience, mint is pretty hard to kill. That article struck me as odd. It said she used one mint leaf. How much pesticide residue could be on one mint leaf to make that many people sick? Or was that supposed to mean a sprig with multiple leaves on it? I'm really thinking there had to be something else wrong with the stew.

ETA: The most recent version of the article is different and says "leaves," plural. Never mind.

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I don't have any garden space so I can't grow my own but I have noticed whenever I buy the stuff at a farmer's market it withers in a day or two whereas the stuff from the Whole Foods or Wegman's lasts up to two weeks sometimes. I use mint a lot (I always have a mint, shallot, lemon, yogurt dipping sauce on hand for veggies and drink lots of mojitos) and this has pretty much led me to stop buying from the markets even though I would like to.

But back to the topic story, WOW the ICU?? That must have been some crazy strong pesticide.

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I can't keep track of different updated versions of the article, but I hadn't noticed this line before

Investigators are also looking into the possibility that a poisonous plant was plucked from the garden and used by mistake.

I don't know if that's a change to the article or I missed it before.

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I can't keep track of different updated versions of the article, but I hadn't noticed this line before

I don't know if that's a change to the article or I missed it before.

It's a change that wasn't in the original story. And not surprisingly, the culprit turns out to be jimson weed again.

Seems like another case of accidental jimson weed poisoning makes the news every year. Here's the one that went around a couple of years ago: What Made A Medical Resident Go 'Loco'?

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It's a change that wasn't in the original story. And not surprisingly, the culprit turns out to be jimson weed again.

Seems like another case of accidental jimson weed poisoning makes the news every year. Here's the one that went around a couple of years ago: What Made A Medical Resident Go 'Loco'?

Some people just shouldn't be allowed out of the house; jimson weed really doesn't look anything like mint. It also doesn't smell anything like mint. Surely as soon as you picked it you'd think "gee, this 'mint' I just picked smells remarkably unminty."
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Some people just shouldn't be allowed out of the house; jimson weed really doesn't look anything like mint. It also doesn't smell anything like mint. Surely as soon as you picked it you'd think "gee, this 'mint' I just picked smells remarkably unminty."

I think in this case the jimson weed was growing among the mint that the woman had growing just outside her house by her front steps. I guess she just grabbed a bunch and didn't notice.

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I think in this case the jimson weed was growing among the mint that the woman had growing just outside her house by her front steps. I guess she just grabbed a bunch and didn't notice.
They look sufficiently unlike each other that it'd be really, really difficult to confuse the two. Even if the cook sent someone else outside to do the picking, the leaves on their own don't look anything like mint.
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They look sufficiently unlike each other that it'd be really, really difficult to confuse the two. Even if the cook sent someone else outside to do the picking, the leaves on their own don't look anything like mint.

Yup, somebody really hadn't a clue.

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It's a change that wasn't in the original story. And not surprisingly, the culprit turns out to be jimson weed again.

Seems like another case of accidental jimson weed poisoning makes the news every year. Here's the one that went around a couple of years ago: What Made A Medical Resident Go 'Loco'?

Jimson weed is ubiquitous in the West--I don't think it is all that common in this area, but I could be wrong. It was also quite popular in the heyday of Carlos Castañeda's "Don Juan" books, because it was supposedly the source of Don Juan's power. It's very pretty...

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Jimson weed is ubiquitous in the West--I don't think it is all that common in this area, but I could be wrong. It was also quite popular in the heyday of Carlos Castañeda's "Don Juan" books, because it was supposedly the source of Don Juan's power. It's very pretty...
It's certainly all over the place in east Tennessee; I would have thought this was a little far north for it, but since the zones have shifted it might not be anymore.
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