Thanks for all the advice, I called the company and was told not to eat the apples or mints for a couple of months. Won't eat them this year anyways to be safe. Plants are alive and thriving.
Josusa47, all my mints (yes, container grown) died off last year. My Husband has bought some "crikey Mikey" patio cleaner, says it also kills weeds, large patio, he has taken a lot up re-grouted, still get weeds, the instructions are terrifying, protective gear, rinse off after 48 hours, well, where to you cant let it run off onto your garden, assuming it does actually work, it would kill off everything else, you cannot walk on it for 48 hours, all clothing worn while using, straight into washing machine etc etc, no, he hasnt used it!
We live 'off grid' as regards water, so ours goes into the stream that runs into the nearby valley and eventually into the Mersey.
I don't use any garden related chemicals except water, and that has to come from the pond, and I am careful and very sparing with what I use in the house, as it ends up in the same place.
A similar thing is true for everyone, but our situation makes us more conscious of it than most people are, or perhaps want to be...
Josusa47, all my mints (yes, container grown) died off last year.
How sad. I have donned my black armband. A border full of mint came with the house, and a big rosemary bush. My brother took one look and said: "You're going to have to eat a lot of lamb.". My experience of mint in pots is that it quickly migrates to the edge of the pot, leaving an empty middle, and then goes scrawny and aphid-ridden.
I grow applemint and spearmint in two large pots (the sort I grow tomatoes in) sunk into the ground so that only the top couple of inches of the pot sticks up above the soil. They're in a bed which takes the run off of water from corner of the terrace and floods regularly, thus they're always nicely damp. The rim of the pots stops the mints spreading into the rest of the bed.
Every two or three years I ease the pots out of the ground, remove the old centre part of the plants and plant the younger fresh growth in fresh soil (a mix of garden soil and compost) in the pots and sink them back in the garden.
They're very productive and healthy and able to withstand any attacks by marauding insects.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
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You are describing my mints
Every two or three years I ease the pots out of the ground, remove the old centre part of the plants and plant the younger fresh growth in fresh soil (a mix of garden soil and compost) in the pots and sink them back in the garden.
They're very productive and healthy and able to withstand any attacks by marauding insects.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.