Off The Grid Living: Herb Garden Maintenance For Fall And Winter

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Herb Garden Maintenance For Fall And Winter

Written by: Lindsey Cox Survival Gardening

herb maintenance fall winter
As the calendar turns from summer into fall, it’s a good time to think about performing a few simple maintenance chores in your herb garden so you can enjoy your favorite herbs all year long.
Sage, Oregano, and Thyme
Now is the perfect time to cut away any dead or woody stems you find around the base of your sage, oregano and thyme plants. Also pull up any weeds you find, as they can overwinter and cause a big, overgrown mess next spring.
The most important chore for your sage, oregano and thyme plants would be to trim off the dead flower heads and to prune back just the top of the plant. Doing this will keep your plants bushy and healthy. Take caution not to trim the flower heads too low. A light snipping of the top-most leaves is usually plenty. You want these plants to have enough time to recover from the cutting before the cold weather arrives. Drastic pruning and the first frosts are not a good combination.
Save the healthy, pruned-off leaves for drying. Simply string up the sprigs of leaves on a line somewhere in your house where it is relatively warm and dry. Keep them on the line until they are ready to crumble. At this point, you can store them in an airtight container and use them for culinary and medicinal purposes.
In most climates, sage, oregano and thyme will be fine outside unprotected, even in the cold weather. However, if you live in a very cold to extremely cold climate, you may want to pot a few of these plants and take them indoors or consider giving them extra protection in the herb garden.
Mint
Mint is another perennial that will fade as the weather cools. Many gardeners and cooks like to pot up a little bit of mint to take indoors for wintertime use. This will work, but your mint may struggle indoors and become rather straggly and unhappy.
You can store mint in the freezer. Harvest your mint, clean it, and then chop finely. Pack into ice cube containers, add water, and then freeze. Pull out cubes of “fresh mint” to thaw and use as needed.
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Chives
In many areas, chives will thrive outside in the garden until the bitter winter cold arrives. That said, it’s still a wise idea to pot a little clump of chives to take indoors, just in case Old Man Winter decides to ruin your chive crop sooner than you were prepared for. When the serious cold temps do arrive, chives will go dormant until the weather begins to warm up in the spring. Then they just pick back up where they left off! (Chives are seriously one of the easiest herbs to grow.)
Chives are very hardy and can grow almost anywhere. A sunny kitchen windowsill will usually provide your chives enough light to keep them happy until they can be replanted outdoors. Water your chives on a regular basis, as they don’t like to be dry. But do not overwater them. If you’re a gardening purist, you can feed your chives with an organic fertilizer about once a month to keep them in tip-top shape while they are indoors.
If you don’t have an indoor sunny window, you may also consider placing a pot of chives on a back deck or covered porch where they are partially protected from the wind and bitter cold, yet still receive enough light to grow normally.
Rosemary
Rosemary is a robust and hearty herb, but it is still a Mediterranean plant that can succumb to cold temperatures. It will not survive outdoors in extremely cold weather.
To save rosemary over the winter in cold climates, place the plant in a pot. About a month before the first frost is expected, bring the pot in to a protected area near the house, such as a covered porch or deck. When the temperature drops below 30 degrees….More Here