Beautiful Basil

After trimming one very large Basil bush, drying the bowl full of leaves that resulted I now have a much better idea of just how much of a plant you need to make a decent quantity of dried herbs! I am also drying Sage, Rosemary and Oregano and hope to be able to make gifts in the future, but will need to increase my plant numbers first.

Lavender and Honey Cake

I was lucky enough to have this made for my birthday recently, using ingredients from the garden, our daughter baked a Lavender and Honey Cake, with a Lemongrass infused cream and Basil flowers sprinkled across the top- beautiful.

Perennial Basil and Mexican Tarragon

We now have many Perennial Basil plants in our garden, all from just one original plant. We have also given away many small plants to others as it is such a fantastic plant. It is delicious as part of a Tomato and Basil salad, recipe here, or as the main ingredient in a Basil Pesto. As well, it attracts hundreds of bees and is beautiful to look at. Here you can see the Basil growing beside a Mexican Tarragon, we had no idea how lovely the flowers would be and are looking forward to tasting it soon.

Doing our bit for Sustainable September

Our tiny Almond tree has about nine flowers on it, perhaps we will be able to double our crop of two almonds from last year!

Today we have harvested lots of Spinach and Kale, giving some away, cooking some and blanching and freezing the rest. Transplanted tiny Lettuce seedlings and planted some more seeds, including Capsicums.

We have realized that Andy had been planting some of the seeds too deep, not realizing that each plant likes to be planted at a certain depth, we live and learn.

 The Chinese Date/Jujube finally has some leaves sprouting, we have been told we will even get fruit from it this year- fingers crossed.

The Pomegranate and the Persimmon are now covered in leaves, they both have such elegant forms and leaf shapes they are lovely to look at.

The garden just outside the front door is doing well, here you can see Carrots, Coriander, Basil, Sage, Thyme and Capers. Once the Carrots are finished we plan to add more herbs that way they will be close to a door and easy to use for cooking.

New Fridge No Dig Garden November 2009

Once filled up Andy planted a Capsicum, Red Mizuna, Tomato, Lettuce, Basil, Orange Thyme, Rocket and a sprouting Ginger. On either side you can see the Globe Artichoke and the Blackberry Bush. For lunch we had salad stuff that was almost entirely from the garden.