We have had so much rain this year that I have had quite a time getting any basil to grow. And the plants I did get started keep getting eaten by slugs! I felt better when I talked to my friend Erma who happens to be Mennonite and raises almost all her family’s food. She said that she had no luck with her basil either this year. I love her attitude though…she said, “oh there’s still time, and I don’t use it until I make my sauces anyway.”
Pesto is a staple in our house, and I just couldn’t stand the thought of having to buy fresh basil all season long. So today I broke down and bought some really leggy overgrown and even flowering basil at a greenhouse. The roots were really bound so I had to cut off the bottoms. And since these were really leggy, I gave the plants a major clipping. Thankfully, we are going to have a couple of rainy days so that should give these a good chance to recover from all the trauma. And now I have basil for pesto at the beginning of July!
leggy greenhouse basil
basil gets a clip
You can see from my opening picture once I trimmed the basil, no plant was safe. I went after the coleus in our window boxes next. That was harder to do because it means temporarily the boxes will have a bit less color, but in the long run the plant will fill out much better. Again, with all the rain, these plants were developing long stems in their hopeless search for light.
The garden is starting to green up a bit. We have harvested lettuce, peas, radishes, kale, and cabbage. My beans are getting a slow start, I suspect more seeds rotting as the ground is so wet with all the rain. And the peppers are stunted, but the kale and cabbage are glorious even though they got a late start. Apparently, I forgot to dig up a row of potatoes last year because I have a row of potato plants and one plant growing with the kale.
The garden is what it is. I love that gardening is different every year depending on the challenges presented by a whole host of things that are completely out of my control. Anyway, here’s where we are the last day of June.
We LOVE LOVE pesto too! Our growing season here is shorter....but my husband's aunt has a basil tree in her home - one summer one of her basil plants grew like wild - and she took it inside for the winter - now it looks like a fig tree, with basil leaves!
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