I harvested some of my basil, a lot of it had already flowered, but had not yet fully matured seed. I let it flower to let bees have more herb flowers. I am really getting into letting some of your plants go to seed, partly so that you can save the seed, partly to have flowers, for the bees and other insects.
So, I harvested I think 5-6 plants. Pulled them up from the ground. I brought them back and cut off the roots. I than stripped off the flower buds. I brought them inside and hand picked off the leaves that had no spots and were good looking. That meant about 50% went to compost. But, I have 3 dehydrator trays full right now, and can probably fill another two, just from the 'good' leaves. I didn't make much pesto because we don't have a food processor. I think I will put that on my birthday list. I am drying most all of it. Though, when we get close to our frost I plan on potting a few plants to bring inside through the winter, to have some fresh basil.
I should have enough fresh basil to last more than till spring. Probably till next Autumn or more. I'll probably give some of it away.
English Vintner
I love basil! We did not grow any this year but i tried some in the backyard and it promptly died, but when I put it in the front yard it exploded! It was so fun!
ReplyDeleteI am impressed with how the photos turned out, I took them with my computer.
ReplyDeleteMy basil did quite well, I am leaving a few plants until frost, hoping to get some seeds. I also saw a bumble bee on one of the basil plants! Reenforcing my thinking to let some of it flower.
ReplyDeleteI tried to start off a lot of it in the greenhouse early on without good success. But in April I direct sowed and got good germination.
My plan is to pot up a few and over winter them (I didn't say that in the post did I?).