Great Harvest Today...

[jen4]

Pictures on my blog http://jennifer-yates.blogspot.com
We are drying Basil and Sage right now... the house smells soooo good!

 

[digitS']

Very nice photo's, Jen !

You know, I grow lots of basil but have never dried it. Do you have to do that with fans to keep it from turning black?

Why the "last of the zucchini" . . . what happened?

I was very pleased with their production and disappointed that DW didn't seem to appreciate banana peppers . . . :/ What do you think of them?

Steve

 

[jen4]

Thank You

Well... this is our 1st time drying herbs, didnt know about it turning black (does it matter?) I was just going to crush it up and put it in a shaker, will it make it taste gross?

Last of the zucchini because our plants are done think they got too much rain but we have ate a ton since they came in and I've made zucchini bread, froze alot too and gave some away... next year we are going to try planting some different times... maybe a week or 2 in between, see how that does

Banana pepper... we like em, we add them to our salas or eat em with our meal, plan on canning some, I guess I'll try pickling em... this is our 2nd year with a huge garden and I just learned how to can and stuff last year... love it!

 

[digitS']

Basil turns black if you look at it crossways, Jen.

I don't know if it would make a difference during drying. The dry basil you buy at the supermarket is green. I've just assumed that drying it, would require some special approach more than just . . . uh, drying it (hanging upside down, like I do with other things ).

My zucchini plants are just getting in gear. Mildew likes zucchini and I've got a 2nd planting coming along in case the 'dew kills what went in during the spring.

Yeah, DW seems a little suspicious of Garden Salsa peppers, too. They and the bananas do the best of any in my garden. She seems to be coming around to appreciate GS.

I should just grow the Bananas and insist that she tell me where they miss the mark for a nice little sweet pepper. I think they are great!

Steve

 

[Rosalind]

You have to have fairly low humidity to dry basil properly. If it's very humid, I use a food dehydrator. Yours might be OK, depending on the weather. Mine was OK last year, all I did was dry it upside-down in the pantry then crumble it into a jar, and we had lotsa rain.

If you have extra, Steve will be happy to take it off your hands.

 

[digitS']

The near to hand bed of basil (with a coriander flower as accent):

I've carried quite a bit of this stuff to the compost lately. There's nothing wrong with that. Not pinching off the flowers will put an end to growth. Completely removing the flower tips will allow the plants to stay in production right into cold weather.

(Note to self: clean up this bed, soon!)

Freezing pesto works fine but basil refrigerates very poorly. I doubt if I can ship it from one side of the country to the other, Rosalind. You'll just have to drop by and help me clean up the excess.

Steve

 

[jen4]

Pesto... thats another thing on my list I need to make!

Well we are done drying... I did it in the oven and its looks good to me... crushed it up and put it in a shaker