My Basil is starting to yellow and look pretty sad, so I decided to do a little reading up on the culture of the crop. According to the articles, once the plant flowers, the Basil turns bitter and that’s the end of it. This makes sense as I never get to the buds quick enough, and the plant is flowering before I can pick them off.

I made Pesto last year and it was bitter, which I thought was due to the fact I used walnuts instead of pine nuts, which didn’t seem right. Now I know it was the Basil. I bought some potted Basil at Heinen’s, our new food store in town. I got three 8-inch pots for $1.99 each. Great price!

I made pesto with half new and half from my old plants and it turned out great.

The articles also recommended to add Basil to your cooking at the end. It holds it’s flavor better.

Next year, I’ll put a couple of plants in and then try succession plantings from seed.

I picked beans today. Probably should have done it two days ago. They are a little large, but fine. There were easily enough for 5 or 6 meals. There is a 7 ft. row of Roma Beans and a 7 ft. row of the other. So, I picked them 55 days after planting.

Next year, I should probably plant 8 ft. rows and stagger the planting every two weeks.

Heirloom tomato salad with roasted Roma tomatoes and cucumbers.

I got enough Heirloom Tomatoes to make a salad. A couple of Black Krims and one Cherokee Purple that should probably been left on the vine a couple more days, and a couple Lemon Boys.

I cut up the tomatoes and a cucumber and a bunch of basil. Dressed it with Olive Oil and Balsamic and some black pepper. Then I topped it with roasted Roma tomatoes. Delicious!

Don’t mess with this guy!

The drought continues, so in order to keep the garden flourishing, I need to water every other day or so. The garden is spread out in a haphazard manner with mostly raised beds. It’s tough to get good coverage with a sprinkler, so I water by hand which takes an hour or two.

I was watering under what is left of the pear tree. I’ve trimmed the tree as much as possible and will probably have it taken down in the fall, as it is shading parts of the garden, and I never get an pears anyway due to various animals and hornets and yellow jackets that attack the pears while still on the tree and then harass me when I walk through the garden.

Anyway, I was watering under the tree this evening and things started hitting me on the back. Finally, I got hit on the head with a pear. I looked up in the tree and evil squirrel was sitting there throwing pears at me. This has happened before.

Now, I bear no animosity toward the rodent, even though he (or she) has torn shingles off of my roof during nesting season, and made a hole in the shed, but then wisely decided that it was not a good place for a nest after shredding most of a roll of paper towels and stuffing them in the space above the door.

“Evil’ may be too strong a term to use for this furry creature. One would not call Disney’s Chip and Dale “Evil” no matter how much they tormented Donald Duck, so maybe a term like impish, mischievous, or other adjective that is less “dark” and slightly comic might be more apt.

After the pear on the head, I was tempted to set my watering nozzle to “Jet”, point the nozzle into the tree and give the little so-and-so a good soaking, but I remembered that squirrels can be very vindictive and usually have the last word.