I knew what I was going to do today. Weather permitting I would get outside and harvest our basil and not only make our dinner using it but make enough to have pesto a couple times during the winter. I planned ahead and we stopped by the grocery store to get more Parmesan cheese. We also picked up some milk, but you probably don't care much about that!
Today I went out to the garden in the afternoon and did a few chores, planted a few things, potted a few more things for the
plant swap this weekend, and gathered basil from the
vegetable garden. I figured I had enough to make two or three batches of pesto at the most from our three Italian basil plants. I wasn't even considering the cinnamon, lemon, or Thai basils although I have used them before to make pesto. I thought 3 plants certainly can't have enough leaves to make a whole lot. But this gardener was wrong! Three plants produced lots of basil. Lots and lots of basil. I was surprised, very surprised.
There was so much basil that an hour after harvesting I was still picking and cleaning leaves. My wife arrived home and I had to send her out to pick up more Parmesan cheese while I continued to work. Dinner was delayed until nearly 8:00 PM while the pesto was completed. In the end we froze nine cups of pesto in addition to what we had for dinner. Assuming we have pesto once every two weeks throughout the fall and winter this pesto should last into April and just in time to plant more in the garden.
Here I was thinking that next year I really needed to do more with basil in the garden, that I just didn't have enough. Sometimes it's good to be wrong. Of course the best part about having all this basil is knowing it came right out of our garden!
Labels: herbs, vegetable garden
Today I went out to the garden in the afternoon and did a few chores, planted a few things, potted a few more things for the plant swap this weekend, and gathered basil from the vegetable garden. I figured I had enough to make two or three batches of pesto at the most from our three Italian basil plants. I wasn't even considering the cinnamon, lemon, or Thai basils although I have used them before to make pesto. I thought 3 plants certainly can't have enough leaves to make a whole lot. But this gardener was wrong! Three plants produced lots of basil. Lots and lots of basil. I was surprised, very surprised.
