Basil

We plant lots of basil in the garden at Linderhof

It's one of our favorite herbs

And it is a summer herb

It doesn't like to be cold

And so the temperature

especially the ground temperature

needs to be warm.

We don't plant basil at Linderhof

until Memorial Day or after

We planted this weekend

Little basil plants

A half dozen

(and we'll probably add a couple more during the next week or so)

There are two things about basil --

You never let them go to seed

And if you pinch them back by about a third two or three times during the growing season

you end up with big bushy plants!

We do pinch

Always right after we plant

Taking about a third of the plant

Just about a spot where two leaves branch out.

Our "pickings" find their way to the kitchen

A respectable amount from the six plants

Our first basil of the season.

It's always a red letter day

The day we plant basil.

And those clippings make one of our favorite dishes

We call it margarita pasta

Pasta (your favorite kind), basil (chiffonade the bigger leaves and we leave the little ones whole), cherry tomatoes halved, olive oil, salt and pepper and a good shower of Parmesan cheese!

It's a favorite supper

And will be repeated many times this summer

Especially when we have garden cherry tomatoes!

Dinner was al fresco in the garden

The pasta, homemade bread, and a wilted lettuce salad

We'll have many more snippets of basil in our meals this summer

And the next time I clip in a month or so, there should be enough to make the first batch of pesto for the freezer.