[shazam21]

Had an allotment for a few months now. We've successfully grown parsley, chives and coriander from seed. These are really thriving. Will any of these continue into winter or should I take cuttings and transfer back into the potting shed over the cold months? Or should I just let them die out and go from seed again next year?

I grew basil which thrived originally, but then died. They were in baskets on the side of my shed and I worry they were too shallow and they had full exposure to the sun all day. Could this be what killed them? Would these have been better in the ground? Lesson for next year...

I also took a cutting of rosemary from my grandparents plant and this is in a pot at the moment. It hasn't died, the leaves are a lovely deep green however it hasn't grown at all. Would this be better in the ground, and will such a small plant (at present) survive winter in the UK?

Thanks

[Flowertot]

Hello Shazam and welcome. Last winter (very mild) I had parsley which kept going in a pot outside my kitchen with no special treatment at all until it flowered in Spring. The chives on my allotment have now dealt well with 2 winters - I just cut their "hair" down to say 10cm. I've never grown coriander but no doubt an expert will be along soon.

I find basil loves the sun but also lots of water. Do you think perhaps it dried out?

Rosemary is tough. If it's green and healthy, it should be fine over winter. You may think it is doing nothing but, as it is a cutting, it may just be concentrating on its roots (which you can't see).

Enjoy your herbs!

[JayG]

Don't know where you live shazam21 (putting your location in your personal profile can be useful) but basil is very tender and certainly doesn't do well outdoors here.

Coriander is an annual which usually runs to seed quite quickly, so is normally sown in succession to keep supplies coming during the warmer months. Even if it hasn't flowered, it will die in winter.

Chives will be fine outside all year round, and if you have let them set seed you will probably find new plants growing in all sorts of unexpected places. 

Parsley is a biennial which means it will flower and die in its second year and therefore need resowing. It can get a bit hammered by winter weather, but assuming yours are in the ground they will have to stay there (you can't take cuttings from it.)

As Flowertot has already said, rosemary is usually pretty hardy if not grown in soil which gets waterlogged - I replaced my over-large bush with a rooted cutting which overwintered quite happily but took some time to get going this year.

[Paul Plots]

I'm hopeless with most herbs...... my daughter grows too many and passes them on to me. I stick them in where ever there's a gap in a large island flower-bed. "Something" has gone bananas and grown so well - lovely purple flower - nice smell too.

Tomatoes and basil grow happily next to each other I found - handy for using together too.
Rosemary = love it (as my budgies eat it - stems and all) - it has a lovely smell. There are many different varieties - different colour flowers too. Some are upright and there's the occasional prostrate form.

Hard as nails... give it time. Cuttings are easy to take - snap a side stem off (semi ripe wood), plonk it in water and watch out for roots - pot up... then you have replacements should you lose one over winter.

Loads of sun - free draining soil - a good slosh of water to get them established. Cambridge blue is a nice variety. there's also a white form. All make good (lowish) screens. I had one next to the allotment shed - nice to run your hand through it on the way past.

Good luck Shazam21.... happy growing. 

[AnnieB]

Would expect the parsley and corriander will not survive, not sure about the chives. Also I do not thing they are perennial plants either so could well just live one year or at most two, in the second year they would set seed and so not develop the green growth that that are generally grown for.

[DanielCoffey]

Chives grow very well in a container and are winter hardy even in Scotland (mine are in a small window box).

They respond well to a Spring feed with an initial crazy flush of flowers and then go a little straggly so I give them a brutal cut down to an inch using a sharp knife. A week later they are back good as new. The second flush of flowers is more sedate and will keep going until they die back in the Autumn.

Flavour changes according to whether they are picked very early (more garlic-like) or later in the season (more chivey).

They do dry out in the wind so water them on hot days. Bees love them.

As for pests, keep an eye out for greenfly at the base and give them a good drench in soapy water a couple of times.