Herb Garden Outdoors - need to winterize?

[canadianinlondon]

Hi there, after success growing mint in a pot, I'll like to get a bigger herb garden planter stand and fill it with herbs (parsley, chive, basil, rosemary). I've seen a nice one from VegTrug herb planter, but it doesn't come with an appropriately sized cover. I live in SE London, will the herbs live thru winter if there's no cover? Or do I need to get a planter stand that has a fitted cover similar to the greenhouse ones where light can get thru? Thank you!!

I can't answer your question about the planter but I have several herbs planted last year that are still growing strong (mint, parsley, chives and rosemary). Parsley is often treated as an annual and is past its best but the others will survive out in the garden.

Putting mixed herbs in a trough doesn’t always work, the different plants may need different growing conditions. Rosemary and sage are Mediterranean plants and like drying free draining soil, as does thyme. Thyme spreads and will soon take over a trough.
I plant my parsley on the edge of the raised bed, where it has hummus rich soil.
Chives are pretty easy going as is Marjoram. Basil and Corriander, don’t really survive our winters outside.

The herbs I have out all winter are rosemary, thyme, chives, oregano, sage and mint. I've made a herb bed this year which includes fennel, chervil, flat parsley as well as more sage, thyme, chives and oregano. I'll cover that over this winter. My tarragon is in a pot and is placed in the greenhouse over the winter months.

parsley & basil won't survive the winter but they are short-lived & cheap. just put new ones in when the old ones die.

I really wouldn’t plant them all together, they need separate pots.
The mint especially, never plant that with friends, it’s far too invasive.
Chives a close second, they are also very invasive.
Basil is annual and cannot tolerate any cold whatsoever, you can’t even think about planting it out until May at the earliest depending on where you are.
Parsley is biennial; herb year one, flowers year two then death.
The others are reliably perennial

Parsley is biennial, it flowers in the second year from seed. It may continue to survive, but you don’t get the abundance of tender green leaves. That’s why it’s usually grown fresh from seed every year.

Rosemary is a Mediterranean plant, it needs well draining soil. Same conditions as oregano, savoury, sage, thyme. Apart from that, they have no problem in English winters.

Basil is tropical and will not overwinter.

Bay, mint, chives have no problem with English weather.

Just chipping in to say that I have the VegTrug herb planter and it's divided in to 6 sections, so you can have different soil for each plant.

Watching with interest as I just stared my herb garden this spring and was already fretting about the winter.

My parsley just about survived this last winter, which it never has before. The chives also survived but neither of them grew much so weren’t really available to use. The mint did what it always does and disappeared but is now back. I find only thyme, bay, sage, rosemary and oregano are reliable winter herbs, but fine by me, I think they are the ones I like using most in winter anyway.

I don’t cover them or protect them in any way, they are all grown in pots.

Meant to say I normally treat parsley, basil and tarragon as annuals and expect to buy in or grow annually. I also have bronze fennel , but I harvest the seeds *and make do with those in winter until the fronds spring up again. I have also sown coriander this year, for some reason I have never grown it before.

• more accurately I share them with the blue tits who love them.

My parsley has sprung up again this year and I looking wonderfully green and bushy - do I need to pull it up and reseed??

My Parsley has survived 2 winters seems fine.

@Lou573

My parsley has sprung up again this year and I looking wonderfully green and bushy - do I need to pull it up and reseed??

You might as well use it while you can. But start some seedlings to take over from when it gets tough and not very productive.

Only today I bought this stackable planter from lidl with the plan to make it a herb stack. There are 9 pots in total on 3 tiers:
www.lidl.co.uk/en/p/garden-updates/parkside-3-tiered-planter-set/p42464

I had some herbs year round in London, with no fleeing or protection- sage, rosemary and chives. My mint used to die back, but come back as soon as it warmed up.

You don't need a specific cover. You can use bubble wrap or fleece for frost sensitive plants. Some herbs like coriander do die off, so need to be planted over and over anyway. Do you have a bright window you could put the pot on during winter? or a bright room?

I've got a couple of large tubs with a mix of thymes, oregano and chives which seem to coexist happily enough. The chives die right back in winter (I'm in Lancashire) but regrow abundantly. There seems to be self seeded parsley springing up too from a previous years plant which is a bonus. Then I've got separate pots for mint, sage, rosemary and bay. And another pot of chives because they're pretty flowers too.

Basil and coriander I just keep indoors on a windowledge. I find that putting basil outdoors in summer it seems to get tough and not as nice.

It would be probably be unwise to cover sage, rosemary and the other Mediterranean herbs - likely to induce mildew. They're used to well drained soils, and summer drought being their worst problem. So although they cope with the long winter cold and wet, they'd prefer not to have fleece cutting down air flower round the leaves.

Things like mint and chives are meant to die down for a season. Chives have a bulb, which is deliberate storage for a season without leaves.

Coriander is designed to grow, flower, disperse its seeds and die. Even if you were to keep it warm indoors for the winter, light levels would be too low for healthy growth.

Basil is native to India and other tropical regions, which is why we grow it as a summer herb only.

Also be careful with oregano, it's quite invasive. Pots only.

If you would like something for a shady area you could try ramsons, our native wild garlic planted over with wood sorrel. The garlic leaves are delicious and the sorrel is great in early salads...tastes like green apple skin, very tart & tangy.