When the nighttime temperatures start dropping into the 40s, it’s time to bring your tender plants indoors.  This weekend the forecast is calling for those colder temperatures at night, so today was a good day to move my tender herbs into my kitchen.

The biggest problem with growing herbs indoors is light.  Most of the time, you must provide supplemental lighting for your plants.  I’m blessed with large south facing windows in my kitchen that provide enough light for my plants effectively turning my eat-in kitchen into a greenhouse.

Every year I conduct experiments in wintering over herbs in my kitchen greenhouse.  This year, I am conducting three experiments.

Holy Basil

Holy Basil, a tropical only hardy through zone 10.  As you can see, I waited too long to bring this poor plant indoors.  Even though it still hasn’t been below 50⁰F at night, the leaves have been nipped by the cold.  Fingers crossed that I got it inside on time and that it makes a full recovery.

Sweet Marjoram

Sweet Marjoram, hardy through zone 8 so it’s grown as an annual here in NJ (zone 6).  Let’s see if I can fool it into thinking it’s on vacation in a warmer climate.

Tricolor Sage

Tricolor Sage, hardy through zone 6 but it never lasts more than a few winters.  Supposedly it can be grown indoors, so let’s see if that is true.

Basil cuttings

I’m also experimenting with some basil cuttings.  More details on that later.