Wild Onion/Mint Invasion

I have a terrace in my back lawn that I am wanting to plant some rhizomes in. When I weed eat it, I can smell onions and I believe mint. I assume the original builder had some things planted in it and it is still growing. The question is will it change the hops taste, if so how can I fix it? Remove the top soil and re-soil it? Spray some herbicide on it to "sterilize" the ground? Any other suggestions? Cheers!

I highly doubt that your hops will pick up any character from the onions or mint, but those are two very difficult plants to get rid of. I would first excavate as much as you can and try to remove any bulbs and rhizomes that you find. If you do a thorough job, you'll think you've gotten rid of everything but some will most likely pop up next season. It can take a year or more to completely get rid of that kind of stuff so be diligent. ps: the herbicide treatment usually only makes you feel better about yourself, and that only lasts until the weeds begin to regrow. Hoppy Growing!

If you can manage to leave it unused for a season, you could lay black construction plastic or newspaper over the area to kill everything underneath. You can even mulch over it to avoid the eyesore of the bare plastic. As far as sterilizing the ground, about the only way to do that is an extended period of heat (such as happens in composting). Most mints propogate with underground shoots, so they can be pretty dang difficult to beat

Mint is opportunistic, to put it mildly.

To get rid of mint, you need to dig up the entire ground 6" deep and clean out everything that is not dirt.

My hops grow with wild onions all around them. Heck the stinking things grow everywhere. Never noticed any I'll effects from any edible plant they grow by. If anything I figure my melons would pick it up before hops.

No help with wild mint round here.