Winter Herb Garden

Here’s the winter herb garden on the mudroom porch. As you can see, the shiso and the basil bit the dust. It was just too cold out there.

The funny thing is that for a long time all of them were just sort of dormant. The mint did nothing for months — I did have a little aphid infestation on the mint when I first brought it in last fall, but even after I killed them off, the mint just sat there with these little tiny nascent leaves that never did anything. Then about three weeks ago, it came back to life. It’s very leggy — I cut a bunch back last weekend, but I’m thrilled to have mint again. I can feel my annual spring obsession with green yogurt sauce hovering out there on the horizon. So it’s good to have some mint again.

The thyme has also had some sort of spring growth spurt. It spent the winter all sort of hard and woody and semi-dried up (I watered, really I did) and like the mint, in the past few weeks it’s taken a turn for the springlike. It’s got these lovely fresh soft little leaves sprouting all over, which has certainly been a lovely thing for my cooking.

The rosemary has done exactly what I ask of it in the winter, it hasn’t died. It hasn’t grown at all, but it hasn’t died on me, so I’m happy with it. The marjoram has been very happy out there on the cool porch all winter, the problem is, to me, it tastes like pine-sol. Don’t love it.

And the chives, like the mint, were sort of dormant all winter, but now appear to be coming back to life.

So all in all, I think it was worth the electricity for the grow lights to keep the herbs out there. We’re still a good six weeks from anything edible coming back outside, and when you consider that a package of mint at the grocery store is $2.99 (and comes from who knows where, and is the wrong sort of mint since it isn’t the mint that grows outside my back door), well, I figure I’ve probably about broken even. And it was lovely this morning to only have to go to the porch to get some thyme and some chive for my soft boiled egg.