Winter preparations

I came home from a four-day trip to Ithaca and Syracuse tonight to find a transformed house. My husband Jim had moved the boxes of books, cooking appliances, personal mementos and furniture that my parents had just sent to us from the overflow space of our front room to the back. He then rearranged the front room, our main living space, into two cozy sitting spaces: a sunny summer space toward the back near the east-facing windows, and a warmer, more snug space around the fireplace toward the front. For the first time since we moved here, our main living area felt not like a ramshackle dumping ground of all things to be considered and more like a comfortably appointed home.

A small fire was in the fireplace, which brought a welcome whiff of warmth. I had gotten caught in rain walking in Syracuse earlier in the morning, and had felt the dampness lingering in my clothes, wet socks and shoes throughout the day as well as during the three-hour drive home. The fire also gently dried out the dampness in the air that had accompanied the past two days of rain.

All this warmth and coziness is reminding me of herbs, and the work of preparing them for winter that awaits.

Our herb garden remains a bit of a work in progress. Still, two years of trial-and-error have yielded some results. In 2012, we ordered seeds for a variety of herbs, many of which I did not think could be grown from seed at all: rosemary, lavender, sage, oregano, marjoram, thyme, dill, cilantro, and, of course, the standard favorite basil. We also ordered several stalks of lemongrass.

We made a lot of errors in 2012, but we had a surprising level of success with herbs. Nearly every perennial that we seeded sprouted and thrived. By the time the deep freezes came last year, we had large garden pots on our deck overflowing with numerous herbs. The question became one of how to keep them going through the winter.

We consulted several gardening web sites and talked to local farmers. From these sources, we learned that the hardier perennial herbs stood a better chance of survival if we moved them out of pots and into the ground, where residual heat from the earth coupled with layers of protective mulch could blanket them through the winter.

So, days before the first snows fell, Jim -- with help from our vegan gourmet cook friend Caitlin -- transplanted the lavender, sage, oregano, marjoram, and thyme into a small garden bed by the side of the house. Jim shoveled mulch over much of the plants, and they more or less went dormant through the winter. They sprang to life this spring wonderfully robust, and with them came a few surprises: a small bit of "volunteer" cilantro and spicy shiso.

As for the other herbs, well, they came indoors. We re-potted basil to keep in the south-facing kitchen window as well as several stalks of lemongrass. After much deliberation, the rosemary came indoors, too. The wisdom from the local farmers was a little mixed. Most didn't think it would survive below 20 degrees outdoors but would shrivel up and dry in a heated home indoors. And, sure enough, it did. We did our best to keep it alive with frequent waterings and mistings, but by March, we were clipping sprigs whose only life seemed evident in the faint aromatic traces that held on.

The rosemary, once placed outdoors, however, sort of bounced back. By April, all of the old foliage had withered up, but new growth was pushing out from the branches. We trimmed it, added a new plant to the pot, and by mid-June, both plants were thriving once again.

And, so now, one week of October has nearly passed. If the long-term weather forecasts hold, we won't have a deep freeze until at least early November. But nights will soon be dipping into the 30s, which will be too cold for lemon grass, basil, and rosemary to last for long.

So, decisions must be made soon, as to what to do.

We already know that our basil will dry up indoors by early December. So we'll enjoy it fresh for as long as we can, and when the cuttings that we took from the garden last month, wither up, we'll turn to the pesto we made earlier.

Lemon grass is the kind of plant that increases its yield when the root bulb divides and sends up new shoots. Last year, we had put our plants in one or two large pots. This summer, we gently pulled apart the divided root bulbs and repotted all of our lemongrass into several pots. I am planning to harvest about half of the plants in full so that we can take full advantage of the rich, lemony flavor of the root in winter Thai, Vietnamese, and Chinese dishes, and am hoping that by planting what remains into smaller pots, we can keep the plants strong and healthy indoors through a second winter.

The rosemary remains an open question. I am thinking that I will harvest nearly all of the existing sprigs because rosemary is such a wonderful culinary addition to winter dishes. I also am thinking that it might make sense to leave the plant outdoors through the winter blanketed in mulch until the night temperatures drop into the low twenties, and then bring it indoors in a small pot that I can keep on a windowsill where indoor heat won't dry it out. I keep thinking, however, that it would prefer to be outdoors sharing space in the perennial herb garden with the lavender, sage, and others. If only I could give it a winter jacket.