High five from a bumble bee!

Basil harvest!

Temperatures are dropping to the 40s at night here in South Carolina, so I get the feeling I'd better get most of the big leaves off of the 12-15 sweet Genovese basil plants I grew from seed this summer in the garden.

For making pesto! Which I will freeze and use all year when I am feeling lazy!

I've found great success harvesting basil by picking the big leaves and the very tops as well, so that the little guys budding by the stem can flourish and become big, themselves.

And so the plant doesn't flower and therefore go to seed yet, so I can keep maxing out my basil supply.

I like to use the pesto recipe from The Silver Spoon cookbook as a rough guide to making my own (thank you again, Wendy, for giving that book to me!); and subbing in toasted walnuts for pine nuts seems to work real, real nice for my taste buds right now.

(Doesn't hurt that the modest, pedestrian walnut is cheaper than the astronomically expensive pine nut.)

Meanwhile, my green shiso plants are flowering in a very basil-like fashion, hopefully meaning lots of little shiso plants scattered about the yard next growing season!















This bee is puttin' five on it.
















What are your herb harvesting tips? Pesto recipes?

Let's nerd out.