OK, I admit it. I scurried as fast as I could, and in a rush brought ALL my herbs and tender plants in right before our freakish Halloween weekend snow storm! Therefor, when this crossed my email this morning I was thrilled! Thank you so much to The Herb Companion, now I know better what I should have bothered with and what I could have ditched. My full windows will be happy to have some “disappear” and I will have an easier winter maintenance routine. You can read the full article on-line, it is called “Wintering Herbs Indoors: Save your favorite herbs by bringing them indoors for winter care, and enjoy fresh flavor throughout the season.” By Betsy Strauch. Click http://www.herbcompanion.com/Gardening/Wintering-Herbs-Indoors-06.aspx#ixzz1cTQpG13P
I have taken some highlights out that I found very useful. The article begins “Autumn. The harvest of herbs is winding down, and the frenzy of trying to stay ahead of the weeds has abated. It’s easy at this time of year to kick back, relax and forget about gardening until the new seed and nursery catalogs start arriving in January. Herb gardeners who live where winters are frost-free can get away with this, and so can those in more rugged climates who only grow annuals, such as dill, or tough perennials, such as garden sage. However that leaves a lot of gardeners unaccounted for, including those who grow rosemary, tender lavenders or other plants that will die at temperatures below 15 degrees, as well as those who have a yen for fresh herbs all winter. Those people (and I’m one of them) need to make some decisions now.
…forget about the annuals, such as summer savory, chervil, cilantro, borage and dill. Their lives are about over; if you want them indoors in winter, you can start new plants from seed… Don’t bother bringing in tough perennial culinary herbs whose dried leaves have good flavor — I’m thinking of sage, oregano and thyme — unless you think you can’t get along without the fresh leaves…Don’t bring in huge tender plants if you don’t have room for them, no matter how badly you need them for next year’s herb garden…Lastly, turn your back on diseased or pest-ridden plants…
Think cuttings…this is well into the article and worth reading if you are thinking about doing this. The section is called “DISASSEMBLING AN HERB.”
To read how she brings her plants in, well, you will have to go to the article! It is on page 2…Caring For The Plants Indoors– page 3, but I will tease you with… “As light levels diminished with the approach of winter, the herbs seemed to enter a holding pattern. None appeared to be growing, and only the rosemary offered many leaves for harvesting. I watered only when the soil became dry or nearly so. Sometimes I was a little late, and the pineapple sage wilted on several occasions, but they recovered well after being watered. I applied no fertilizer.”
(Note: This article originally appeared in the October/November 1993 issue of The Herb Companion.) By the way, this is a lovely magazine if you like Herbs. I throughly enjoy my copy each time it comes in the mail.
Read more: http://www.herbcompanion.com/Gardening/Wintering-Herbs-Indoors-06.aspx?page=5#ixzz1cTQcXnkT
See you all on Friday for Fun Food Friday!