SIX WORD BASIL

Summer pasta, tomato sandwiches, mmmm basil.

BASIL

My first batch of basil died, kaput, just like that. Dead.
The second batch looks like this. It's been in the ground forever. It has had plenty of water, plenty of fertilizer, plenty of sunshine and plenty of love. Phil provides that. I am a non-garden worker, mostly.
The rest of the garden looks good.

This is a volunteer lettuce, it's done so well it's starting to bolt.

But THIS is from the basil I planted in pots. It's from the same batch that the garden lettuce was planted from. Every body knows that plants in pots don't do well, or not as well as those planted in the ground. Don't they?

Anyway, this is how we've been eating the basil. Tomato sandwiches. Toast, mayo or ranch dressing, tomatoes, salt and pepper and basil. No lunch can top this one.

This is summer pasta. Again, a heavenly meal. The very first time we ate this we ate it eight times in a month.

Hope you planted some basil. If not, I'll share.

THE GARDEN

We worked on the garden today and got most of it planted. Actually Phil did 95% of the work. He dug the holes for all the veggies. He mixed in the fertilizer. He added the compost. Lynne handed the plants to Phil. Phil put the plants in the holes. He watered the planted plants. He's a good sport because when we were finished he said, "Look what we have done!"

It doesn't look like much yet but in a week or so he will put up his trellis's and it will be impressive looking.

We haven't planted broccoli for years. My neighbor always does and when she has fresh broccoli I am jealous. Now I remember why we don't grow broccoli--too late I remember. It's because of the little green worms that you simply cannot see--no matter how hard you look--until the broccoli is steamed and then you see it on someone else's plate AND SO DO THEY. Oh joy.

Basil is my most loved garden item. I eat it right out of the garden. I eat it on open face tomato sandwiches. But most of all I love it in Summer Pasta which we eat about twice a week as soon as the tomatoes are ripe. Copy the recipe because it is fabulous. I promise. Be sure and plant some basil.

This is the horrible taller-than-a-sky-scraper tree that our neighbors have in their yard. It is three feet--if that--from our fence. It shades our garden all afternoon.

See? It's humongous. Our poor garden does it's best.

This I bought by mistake. I thought I had grape tomatoes. So I planted three and will give the rest away and try and find grape tomatoes somewhere. I have no idea if this is a good tomato or not.

My neighbor, the Gardening Guru, thinks I have planted my squash in the wrong place because a row of beans are going in to the east of it and the beans will shade the squash until it gets an hour or two of sunlight and then gigantic-tree will shade it. Oh well. No crookneck for me.

It's too bad I don't know how to grow rhubarb.

I don't know how to grow it out front either. This patch is handy to the lawn swings for the grandkids to eat while entertaining their grandparents. We are hosting a Father's Day dinner here and I know the pile of rhubarb peelings will be enormous. Those grandkids know a good thing when they see it.

To eat rhubarb, peel it, throw away the leaf--it's toxic--salt the rhubarb and eat. Yum.

And if anyone wants a whole box full of horseradish come and dig it up. I have never, not once, used it and it is prolific. I don't fertilize it or even water it most of the time and yet it thrives.

So, that's the beginning of our garden. We have two boxes left to plant, those grape tomatoes, if I can find them and a row of beans so I can make dilly beans. Lord Bumhampton told me he would like three cases of dilly beans for Christmas. Three cases! That's 36 quarts of dilly beans. I'll do what I can Lord Bumhampton but I'm not promising three cases. Or even one, actually. How about some creative begging?