The big disappointment is my onions. I think it's a little too shady for them & I planted them too close. They haven't really bulbed much and the leaves are dying back. The same story with my garlic! Alliums, what's with the hate?!?
Luckily, I have basil, beans & cucumbers to cheer me up! My cukes are taking over despite having a 6' tall trellis. There are probably a dozen or more baby cukes just on the tee-pee trellis. Pickles here I come! The beans are also doing well. I can't believe how much they produce. Of course, the lettuce & Swiss chard makes it hard to find them which means they are often a little too mature (but still edible). Oh, well.
The real hero, though, is basil. Good gracious, the basil! It was like 2' tall and definitely time to do a hard harvest (taking 2/3 of the plant). It ended up being over 10oz! I'm freezing most of it for winter use as there's no way we could eat that much basil in a few days (I need a break from pesto).
Totals for the past week are:
Cukes 4oz (not all pictured)
Beans 7.25 oz (not all pictured)
Onions 7.5 oz (not pictured)
Lettuce 2 lbs (!!! and there's still more...not pictured)
Kohlrabi 3 lb (this is all of it. not pictured)
Grand total for the year: 37.55
Not too shabby!
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I love reading your blog! This is year 2 for our garden and the first successful year with cucumbers--except I think I am leaving them a little too long because the squirrels keep getting them. Same with the zucchini : ( We do have an over abundance of basil and would love to hear more about freezing...are you doing that whole or in pesto form?
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind words!
ReplyDeleteUltimately, I will freeze both pesto & leaves, but right now I'm just doing basil leaves. Essentially, I clean & chop the basil, stuff it into our muffin tin (because this holds 1/4c & that's how much we generally use for recipes), just cover the basil with water & then freeze. Once it's frozen, I pop them out & place in a (labelled!) zip-top freezer bag. They work great popping into soups or sauces. I don't think it would be good to make pesto from frozen basil, though.
Incidentally, you can do this with any herbaceous...well...herb. Parsley, cilantro work too.