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HERBS

ANYBODY CAN GROW an herb during the summer. I habitually season my outdoor garden with parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, and a long list of other savory plants. Because I’m perennially in a rush (especially around mealtime), I also host herbs in containers just footsteps from the back door, which is, in turn, just a brief commute to the kitchen. In those containers, I slap together various combinations of thymes. ‘Silver Posie’ is a favorite for its white-rimmed leaves and durability when I’ve forgotten to water, but plain old Thymus vulgaris tastes better. Meanwhile, marjoram is a mainstay. They do their job (making summer squash edible and even quasi-interesting), and they revive despite serial wilting. In summer, herbs are a cinch.

Not so in winter. First of all, your roster of applicable herbs is diminished considerably. Right now, if you came to visit, you’d pay call to several pots of Thymus vulgaris (I’m a heavy user), a winter savory (Satureja montana), marjoram (Origanum majorana; I found a cultivar called ‘Compacta’ that remains midget making it perfect for pots), Origanum ‘Silver Anniversary’, cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum), salad burnet (Sanguisorba minor), and Lavandula ‘Goodwin Creek Gray’ in various windows. I had a fennel (Foeniculum vulgare), but someone admired it so excessively that I had no choice but to send it home in her car (it was the holidays, after all). Although I don’t have a single ounce of Puritan blood, each of these herbs is a workhorse. Some are plucked within an inch of their lives to rescue lentil soup from terminal blandness. Others are simply grown for their aromatherapy, loosely applied. And I’m not the only one who indulges. When Einstein was the new kitten on the block, he quickly learned that playing with the herbs didn’t elicit loud or demonstrative rebukes.

Notice that rosemary isn’t in my lineup of herbs. I wish I could include it, but rosemary refuses to survive the winter here. And I’m not alone. I have been told that rosemary prefers cool temperatures, regular watering, bright light, and basically all the other conditions that herbs in general hold dear.

ANYBODY CAN GROW an herb during the summer. I habitually season my outdoor garden with parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, and a long list of other savory plants. Because I’m perennially in a rush (especially around mealtime), I also host herbs in containers just footsteps from the back door, which is, in turn, just a brief commute to the kitchen. In those containers, I slap together various combinations of thymes. ‘Silver Posie’ is a favorite for its white-rimmed leaves and durability when I’ve forgotten to water, but plain old Thymus vulgaris tastes better. Meanwhile, marjoram is a mainstay. They do their job (making summer squash edible and even quasi-interesting), and they revive despite serial wilting. In summer, herbs are a cinch.

Not so in winter. First of all, your roster of applicable herbs is diminished considerably. Right now, if you came to visit, you’d pay call to several pots of Thymus vulgaris (I’m a heavy user), a winter savory (Satureja montana), marjoram (Origanum majorana; I found a cultivar called ‘Compacta’ that remains midget making it perfect for pots), Origanum ‘Silver Anniversary’, cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum), salad burnet (Sanguisorba minor), and Lavandula ‘Goodwin Creek Gray’ in various windows. I had a fennel (Foeniculum vulgare), but someone admired it so excessively that I had no choice but to send it home in her car (it was the holidays, after all). Although I don’t have a single ounce of Puritan blood, each of these herbs is a workhorse. Some are plucked within an inch of their lives to rescue lentil soup from terminal blandness. Others are simply grown for their aromatherapy, loosely applied. And I’m not the only one who indulges. When Einstein was the new kitten on the block, he quickly learned that playing with the herbs didn’t elicit loud or demonstrative rebukes.

Notice that rosemary isn’t in my lineup of herbs. I wish I could include it, but rosemary refuses to survive the winter here. And I’m not alone. I have been told that rosemary prefers cool temperatures, regular watering, bright light, and basically all the other conditions that herbs in general hold dear.

Cool, bright, and even-handed is a fairly accurate assessment of the state of affairs here. However, rosemary invariably comes down with a nasty (lethal) case of the snivels (symptoms being rot and general leaf collapse, followed by stem disintegration) or powdery mildew. Both of these afflictions make the plant look gross enough to squelch any thoughts of consumption. I love rosemary, but I leave it outdoors, sacrifice it to cold weather, and grow it fresh every year.

Lots of herbs don’t translate indoors. Basil is a good example. Its light demands are too high. In basil’s desperate attempt to seek more sun, it stretches, forms few leaves, and goes to flower in a blink. And what’s basil without leaves? Worthless. Ditto for cilantro. I veer away from sweet bay (Laurus nobilis) because where am I going to host a massive shrub that needs full sun? I like the theory of lovage (Levisticum officinale), but it bolts into flower too rapidly. Sage (Salvia officinalis) is lovely, but it tends to rot without mega-bright sunbeams. The same sorry fate befalls sweet herb (Stevia rebaudiana). I have to skip summer savory (Satureja hortensis) indoors even though it is a vast improvement, taste-wise, over winter savory (Satureja montana, which I do grow quite successfully on my windowsill). As the name implies, summer savory grows best as an annual.

Beyond the inventory that I’ve chosen based on space limitations and culinary taste choices, other herbs would do just fine in my home. The mints, for example, would undoubtedly thrive indoors. Even if they go into a snit and lose leaves, they will soon regrow from the underground rhizomes. I am wild about horehound (Marrubium vulgare) for its deep, throaty, menthol-scented leaves, but I leave it outdoors in the garden where it is nearly evergreen (when not buried in snow). Curly parsley makes a splendid houseplant, and I have entertained it for several winters. Eventually, it will act like a biennial and bolt up into blossom, but not before its leaves have improved many meals for several months. Patchouli (Pogostemon heyneanus) makes a great indoor herb. But it would either be the patchouli or me, because we can’t live in the same house, scent-wise.

What growing conditions do most plants like? As much sun as possible, cool temperatures, a brief dry soil lull between waterings, and lean soil. With the exception of rosemary (whose roots plunge down), most herbs are best grown in tight containers. Skip the fertilizer over the winter. (Many growers suggest forgetting the fertilizer all year because herbs tend to be more flavorful when they grow on lean rations. I find that to be true. The compost in my organic potting soil is sufficient to keep them chugging along beautifully.) Furnishing the cool temperatures is easy for me; I just nestle the herbs close to the windowpanes. But if you live in a normal, comfortable, toasty house, your herbs will also probably be fine. However, they might make leggy growth. And the remedy is to snip them often and add them liberally to dinner. Even those of us who cannot cook become instant chefs with marjoram and some thyme at our beck and call.

• ALSO CALLED: marjoram, oregano, thyme, winter savory, and others