Garden Journal 8/15/10: How To and, More Importantly, Hot Not To Store Fresh Basil

Realization of the Day:

It's a lot easier to write off a garden disaster as a learning experience when it doesn't involve your entire crop.

The photo above illustrates one of the best ways to store fresh basil: in a fragrant little kitchen tabletop bouquet. Sweet looking, nice smelling, and obviously some very happy fresh cut herbs.

That's how I did things last year, when I had so much green and purple basil growing in the garden it kept bursting into bloom faster than I could use it up. This year I had a learning experience—with my one measly plant, which is why this post isn't called something chirpy like Hip Hip Hooray! It's Pesto Time Again! as was originally intended before the harvest.

Basil, Peppers, and Some Really Pathetic Eggplant Plants on 7-13-09

The Same Bed on 8-20-09

See what I mean about last year? And that was only one bed. There were at least two others with basil growing in them. These are the kind of photos that make me so happy when I look back at them. Well, except for the eggplant plants. I harvested a grand total of one eggplant last year—strangely brown, totally bug eaten, about the size of a large marble.

The first year I gardened in Missouri, I grew eggplant for the first time (along with about five dozen other things I'd never grown before). I don't think I'd ever even eaten eggplant, and yet I ordered seeds, planted them in containers, transplanted the seedlings into the garden, and ended up with something like twenty eggplant plants, all brimming for weeks with gorgeous fruits. Nobody needs that much eggplant.

But I digress. I just figured I'd mentioned the eggplant plants rather than try to ignore them and hope nobody asked what they were—and let you know that I really can, and maybe someday even will again, do better. And then someday I'll write more about growing eggplant.

Okay, so the basil. Last year my 6/20/09 garden journal entry was called Harvesting the First Green & Purple Basil of the Season (And the Best Ways to Store Your Fresh Basil), and I wrote about how I usually stored rinsed and nearly dry basil leaves with a paper towel in a plastic bag that's had most of the air pressed out of it and been shut sealed with a clothespin. I also mentioned that I'd been told fresh basil stores well in a pitcher or glass of water on the kitchen counter, and that I wanted to try it.

I did try it, and it worked beautifully. Then this spring I tried the same thing with fresh parsley and wrote about it in a post aptly titled The Best Way to Store Fresh Parsley (and Other Herbs like Basil). In that post I mentioned that a lot of sources advise you to store your fresh herbs in a glass of water in the refrigerator, but I don't find it necessary. Herbs, especially basil, thrive outside in the sun and heat, and if the water is keeping them from wilting there's really no reason to chill them. Besides, I know I'd probably reach into the fridge and knock the glass over an hour after putting it in there.

So now that you know how you should store your fresh basil, let me tell you how not to store it.

Basil and Sweet Pepper Plants on 8-4-10

Basil Plant Before Harvesting on 8-4-10

This is the one basil plant I bought as a seedling back in the spring and put in the ground along with 10 purchased sweet pepper plants back on June 19th (you can read more about setting up that bed—which is doing great—here).

This is the basil plant after harvesting it, along with my freshly cut bounty in the colander and some volunteer kale I picked from that bed for the chickens.

When I harvest basil, I never pull the trimmed plants out of the ground, because the basil will grow back. You can read more about that in my previous post, How To Keep Your Basil Plants Growing Into Fall.

It's best to cut basil and other herbs in the morning, and even though I did, the leaves were already a little droopy from the heat. The shape of the branches didn't lend themselves to a bouquet, so I immersed the basil in a big bowl of cold water to revive it, which is a great way to bring life back to all sorts of greens: lettuce, Swiss chard, spinach, etc. I've even stored freshly picked green beans that I couldn't process and freeze right away (and didn't have room for in the fridge) in a bucket of cold water overnight.

I set the bowl of submerged basil on the kitchen counter, planning to trim off the leaves onced they'd perked up, and then use the plastic bag/paper towel/clothespin/refrigerator storage method instead of the countertop bouquet.

And then I forgot about it.

And this is what I ended up with several hours later.

Basil is temperamental. The leaves quickly turn dark after being chopped, and pesto gets that ugly discolored layer on top unless you cover it with oil. But I never thought that submerging it in water would do this.

8/16/10 Update: Thanks to the anonymous commenter who rightly pointed out that "Basil does not like cold. The leaves turn black from cold water, frost, and sometimes from being in the refrigerator." This is one of those duh moments. I of course knew this (basil will blacken in the garden well before temps get cold enough to cause frost), but I didn't translate it to the cold water, which, in my defense, wasn't all that cold. And although basil is—sometimes, for some people—successfully stored in the cold refrigerator, that's still probably what it was—the temperature, not the water.

I salvaged about 2 cups of leaves from this mess, wrapped them up with a paper towel and put them in the fridge, and promptly forgot about them. Note: basil won't keep in a plastic bag in the fridge for 11 days.

There is still hope. The harvested plant is already growing back, and I have another basil plant in the greenhouse. The quest for pesto—to be continued. . .

In the meantime, my favorite basil recipes are listed below.

Are you growing basil this year? How's it going? Do anything stupid Have any learning experiences to share?

Other basil posts:

9/21/06: How To Keep Your Basil Growing Into Fall

6/25/06: Beautiful Basil Seedlings in the Greenhouse

7/25/06: Volunteer Basil in the Kitchen Garden

8/10/06: Basil Gone Wild - and Happy Pollinators

6/20/09: Harvesting the First Green & Purple Basil of the Season (and the Best Ways to Store Your Fresh Basil

Farmgirl Fare recipes that call for basil:

—Purple Basil Pesto and the Easiest White Bean Dip/Spread Recipe Ever (this is my favorite lower fat, fuller flavor pesto recipe that calls for roasted almonds and fresh tomatoes and works with green basil, too)

—Savory Tomato Pesto Pie with a No-Fail Biscuit Crust (one of my most popular recipes)

—Fresh Tomato Pesto Pizza & A Simple Tomato Salad

—Fresh Tomato & Basil Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread

—Simple Fresh Tomato Pizza Sauce (no blanching required)

—The Easiest Greek Salad Ever

—Colors of Summer Salad with Fresh Basil

—Summer in a Bowl with Fresh Basil

—All About Chives & How To Make Herbed Yogurt Cheese

—Linguine or Farfalle with Sun Dried Tomato & Artichoke Pesto, Cherry Tomatoes, and Fresh Basil (I practically lived on this stuff last September)

© FarmgirlFare.com, the herbalicious foodie farm blog where I love that little vintage Sunday tea towel in the top photo. Now if only I actually spent Sundays that way.

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Garden Journal 8/18/10: Tomato Season Has Arrived and the First Harvest is In!

Yep, that's it. Pretty though, isn't it?

Realization of the Day:

One of the nicest things about gardening is that the littlest surprises can often mean so very much.

A month or so ago, I changed my blog header to a photo that more accurately reflects the season: tomatoes! But ever since then I've felt like a guilty impostor. Oh, those are my tomatoes up there alright—I just picked them back in 2008 (at the end of October!). And while pretty much everyone equates the summer vegetable garden with ripe tomatoes, I don't actually have any growing in my garden this year. Or so I thought.

Yes, they may just be a handful of mystery little cherry types from volunteer plants that sprouted up without my noticing over in the rapidly expanding pet cemetery portion of my kitchen garden (it's been a rough summer all around on the farm), but they're definitely homegrown tomatoes. They count. (I'm backdating this journal entry like I did with the garlic to accurately reflect the harvest date.)

Guilt be gone, the header photo can stay, I'm once again a real tomato gardener who can proudly hold her head up high while floating around the blogosphere. Phew.

I'm of the opinion that you should always have at least one type of cherry tomato plant growing in your garden, because in my experience they offer the best odds of bearing edible fruit. That's especially important when you're gardening in a challenging place like Missouri, where you never know how things will go—or grow—from year to year.

The reason cherry tomatoes are an almost guaranteed winner is simple: they're small. They mature quickly, which means the diseases, pests, plagues, and other terrible things that always seem to happen have less time to show up and attack your plants.

In general I stick to the small to medium sized tomato varieties. Those one and two pounders? Their longer growing season allows way too much wiggle room for disaster to move in, and I learned this the disappointing hard way.

My one exception is Kellogg's Breakfast, an extremely large (for me, at least) sunny orange beefsteak that I did almost give up on. You can read all about them in my August 2006 post, Growing Kellogg's Breakfast Tomatoes and a Colors of Summer Salad with Tomatoes, Zucchini, Sweet Red Peppers, Beet Greens, Basil & Garbanzos. This variety is definitely worth the risk.

Are you growing tomatoes this year? How's it going? Any new favorites? What about failures?

Looking for more tomato talk? Last September I wrote about my favorite varieties of heirloom tomatoes to grow, and a couple dozen of you shared your favorites in the comments section of that post.

Last August (ha - five days later than this year!) my first tomato was ripe, and 42 of you joined in the tomato growing conversation in the comments section of that post. (Your comments are one of the best parts about keeping a garden blog, and I apologize for not being better at replying to them.)

Other tomato growing posts are here:

7/31/06: Growing Arkansas Traveler Tomatoes & How To Save Your Own Tomato Seeds

8/5/06: How to Trim Tomato Plants

8/9/06: Growing Kellogg's Breakfast Tomatoes and a Colors of Summer Salad

9/16/07: Kissing Summer Goodbye with the Easiest Greek Salad Ever

6/2/08: Planting Tomatoes Later is Better than Never (I Think)

9/4/08: How To Freeze Tomatoes the Really Easy Way (and Why I Don't Do Much Canning Anymore) (lots of great comments from other gardeners here)

10/12/08: Growing Tomatoes: How Many Plants Do You Need and What To Do If You End Up with Too Many Tomatoes—Make Easy & Delicious Homemade Tomato Juice! (lots of tomato growing comments here, too)

And my favorite ways to use fresh tomatoes are here:

Homemade Tomato Vegetable Juice

Quick & Easy and Oh So Refreshing Gazpacho

Fresh Tomato Pizza Sauce

Pasta with Sun Dried Tomato & Artichoke Pesto, Cherry Tomatoes, and Fresh Basil (I practically lived on this stuff last September)

Fiesta Cottage Cheese Veggie Dip (and going on factory tours)

Savory Tomato Pesto Pie with a Foolproof Biscuit Crust (one of my most popular recipes)

Fresh Tomato & Basil Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread

Tomato Pesto Pizza, My Basil Pesto Recipe, & A Simple Tomato Salad

Three No-Cook Summer Recipes: Mexican Jumping Bean Slaw, Easy Vegetarian Tacos, & High Kickin' Tomato Dressing

Cream Cheese & Tomato Sandwiches On Italian Black Olive Cheeks

The Easiest Greek Salad Ever

My Seven Second Tomato Glut Solution

Saving the Harvest with No Sugar Green Tomato Relish

How to Freeze Tomatoes the Really Easy Way

© FarmgirlFare.com, the red, ripe and ready to grow foodie farm blog where first tomatoes or no, I am so ready for this long, hot, incredibly humid summer to be over. But the tomatoes do help a little.

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Garden Journal 7/27/10: Harvesting Really Late Planted Garlic

Growing Garlic: Not Bad, Not Bad

Realization of the Day:

I'm a lot more excited about growing garlic after digging up this year's crop.

I'm doing a little back dating here, so that the garden journal date above accurately reflects the day I actually harvested my garlic, as opposed to the day—two weeks later—I'm finally getting around to writing about it. It would only be cheating if it were the other way around, right?

Last year I promised myself I would never again plant my garlic in February, which is about four or five months later than it should go into the ground here in southern Missouri. And this year I kept that promise—I planted my garlic in March instead.

My 2009 garlic is on the left, the purchased Amish garlic is on the right.

Yep, on March 6th I planted two types of hardneck garlic: some of mine that I'd harvested last year, and some from our Amish neighbors that I bought at the only store in town, which is 10 miles away. Talk about your one stop shopping. It's an odd little place, usually filled with various odd characters hanging around (we're all a little odd in some way around here) where you can buy everything from bags of potato chips to bar and chain oil, fence posts to frankfurters, gas and gates to—some days—garlic.

The only other business in town is the itty bitty post office, and it closes for lunch from twelve to one, which just happens to be the time I am almost always driving by. Thankfully I can call up to the store before I head out and ask the owner to go over and get our mail (which the postal service won't deliver to the farm) from the post office, so I can pick it up at my leisure from him, rather than racing out the door in the hopes of getting up there before noon. You also can't access your post office box unless the post office is actually open, but that's a whole other story, and I'm getting sidetracked.

So a little brown paper bag of garlic appeared on a dusty shelf next to the candy bars one day in late February, and the garlic looked pretty good considering it had probably been harvested the summer before. Big fat cloves, no sprouts showing, a sign that said 75 cents a head or three for a dollar.

"It's from the Amish," the store owner informed me as I started pulling out heads. I'm really beginning to love these people—and I still want to build myself have Joe build me one of those sweet little cold frames. I bought three dollars' worth.

"You know you could plant this garlic," the store owner said as I paid for my garlic, two 50-pound sacks of alfalfa pellets for the sheep, a hundred pounds of oats, and a hundred pounds of dog food.

"That's what I was thinking of doing with it."

"But you know what you need to do?"

"What's that?"

"Plant it real soon."

"Yeah, I know."

After tasting the garlic, I bought several more heads the next week for planting. I figured I had nothing to lose, though I didn't have real high hopes. I've grown some really nice garlic in the past, but most of it was many years ago, and it went into the ground in fall. Lately, for various reasons, my harvests have been downright depressing—including the year I spent $77.00 on the stuff.

Amish Garlic Plants on 4-11-10

I planted the bulbs about 2 inches deep with the pointy sides up in one of my 4'x8' raised beds, and then mulched the entire bed with a heavy layer of sheep manure bedding hay from the barn (you can see a photo of the half-mulched bed and read more about fertilizing with sheep manure here). What's great is that the mulch gives your plants a small dose of organic fertilizer each time it rains or you water, until eventually all the manure works its way into the ground, and you're left with a hay barrier impervious to weeds, and then that eventually breaks down and helps amend the soil, too.

Garlic Bed on 4-11-10

Garlic Bed on 4-20-10

Garlic Bed on 5-1-10

I was suprised at how quickly the garlic sprouted and took off—I mean, look at all that growing it did in just 9 days in April—but it soon became obvious that my pathetic little bulbs were no match for the Amish supercloves. See the spindly little plants in the back section of the bed? That would be my garlic.

My garlic eventually disappeared into the weeds, but the Amish garlic took off and put on flower stalks, called scapes, telling me that it was hardneck garlic rather than the softneck variety, which is what you find most often in supermarkets. (I also just read in the latest issue of Organic Gardening magazine that supermarket garlic is often imported from China and sprayed with toxic chemicals to keep it from sprouting.) These flower stalks need to be trimmed off so the plant will send all of its energy down into the bulb.

Garlic scapes are edible, and over the past few years they've become quite the darling of the food world. You can do all sorts of things with them—stir fry them, toss them in salads, put them on pizza, even grill them—and while many people claim they have a fabulous mild garlic flavor, mine are always really strong, to the point where all I taste is burning hot, and I'm somebody who loves the taste of garlic.

I tried making garlic scape pesto a couple of years ago (even took photos!), and oh my gosh did it leave quite a taste in your mouth—for days. I need to do more scientific research, but I think that the flavor has to do with the type of garlic plants the scapes come from. Also, some of the garlic scape pesto recipes I came across literally called for like just two scapes in an enormous quantiry of olive oil and cheese. I should probably try cooking garlic scapes, and see if that mellows out that harshness.

Another sort of byproduct of homegrown garlic is spring green garlic, which is simply a young garlic plant you eat most of, and it really is mild and tastes wonderful. In fact, I usually try to double plant my garlic so that I can pull out every other plant to eat as green garlic in the spring. You can read more about my love affair with green garlic here.

Anyway, I snipped off all the scapes (no idea what date) and fed them to the chickens, who mostly turned up their beaks at them. It is amazing what the chickens will eat, and they really help cut down the guilt factor when it comes to tossing stuff out, whether it's from the garden or the deep freeze. Pizza is one of their favorite foods.

The best time to harvest garlic, as well as plant it, is not clear cut, and I actually have a separate post planned about planting and harvesting garlic that I hope to have up soon. Hint: there is no one answer to either question, and right now isn't the time to do either. I dug up a test head of my garlic the first of July, when about half of the leaves on the plant had turned yellow, and it looked like the bulbs weren't quite formed and could use a little more time in the ground.

The tricky thing about growing garlic is that towards the end of its growing cycle, it shouldn't get wet, since this tends to rot the papery outer layer which helps it keep from rotting in storage. That's probably why garlic grows so well in northern California (where I grew up but never grew garlic), since it usually stops raining by April. Here in Missouri we have rain year round, though never on a certain schedule, which is probably one of the reasons my garlic suffers some years. Garlic heads left in the ground too long will also start to split apart, and this invites rot and insects into the exposed cloves.

Unfortunately I ended up in the hospital right about when my garlic was ready to harvest, and then it rained a couple of times. When I finally got around to digging it up on July 27th—by which time the stalks had completely dried out—I was pleasantly surprised by what I found.

A lot of the papery outer layer was gone from most of the heads, many of the cloves were separated, and there was some insect damage, but overall it wasn't too bad, and the cloves were bigger than any I'd harvested in years.

I brought the loose cloves straight into the kitchen and laid the rest of the heads—with the stalks still attached—in a single layer on a big plastic shelf in the greenhouse, which I then blocked from most of the light with a piece of tin siding I found hanging around. You want the garlic to cure for two to three weeks in a dry, well ventilated place, out of the light. This was the best I could come up with. During previous years I've cured garlic and onions (though onions need to cure in the sun at first) on an old screen door laid horizontally and resting at the edges on boxes of canning jars up in the second story scary part of The Shack (lots of good ventilation that way), but these days it's just too scary up there.

I'm definitely going to hold back some of my harvest for (hopefully!) fall planting. But the rest will be put to good—and tasty—use. Need some fresh garlic inspiration? Below are some of my favorite ways to use it.

Did you grow garlic this year? How did it go? Any garlic growing tips, tricks, stories, or other interesting tidbits you'd like to share? Anybody ever plant theirs even later than I did? What happened? If you've written about your garlic growing adventures on your own blog, you're welcome to include a link to the post(s) in your comment.

What I like to make with fresh garlic? All kinds of things!

Quick and Easy Gazpacho (Cold Vegetable Soup)

My Favorite Lower Fat, Fuller Flavor Basil Pesto (made with almonds & fresh tomatoes)

Arugula Pesto and Arugula Pesto Pizza

Purple Basil Pesto and White Bean Pesto Dip/Spread

Linguini or Farfalle with Sun Dried Tomato and Artichoke Pesto, Cherry Tomatoes, and Fresh Basil

Linguini with Olive Oil, Garlic, Romano, and Parsley (and a wonderful book for art loving foodies)

White Bean and Artichoke Dip/Spread with Rosemary, Romano, and Kalamata Olives

Hot Swiss Chard Artichoke Dip

Low Fat, Full Flavor Fiesta Cottage Cheese Veggie Dip (and factory tours)

Mexican Jumping Bean Slaw with High Kickin' Creamy Tomato Dressing

Garbanzo Bean Salad with Red Onion, Scallions, Cilantro, Parsley, and Feta

Caramelized Beets with Garlic (I love these)

Kohlrabi Purée (this stuff is amazingly good - really!)

Three Onion and Three Cheese Pizza (and my favorite pizza dough recipe)

Swiss Chard and Artichoke White Pizza (a great way to sneak in some greens)

SOUPS

Garlic Lover's White Bean Soup (fat free, vegan, and delicious)

Roasted Red Pepper Soup with Onions, Garlic, Garbanzos, and Artichokes (and lambing season with my mom)

Quick and Healthy Cream (or Not) of Artichoke Soup from the Pantry

Simple and Healthy Swiss Chard Artichoke Soup

Thick and Hearty Italian White Bean Soup (and a book review: Keeping the Feast)

Hearty Lentil Soup with Carrots, Tomatoes, and Smoked Sausage

Quick and Spicy Black Bean Soup/Chili

LAMB RECIPES

Grilled Lamb Burgers with Roasted Red Pepper, Parsley, and Kalamata Olive Relish (and a great farm to table cookbook)

Lamb Burgers with Garlic, Shallots, and Feta on Homemade Rosemary Focaccia

Onion and Herb Crusted Lamb Spareribs & Grilled Lamb Steaks

Slow Roasted Greek Style Leg of Lamb with Lemon, Oregano, Potatoes, and Swiss Chard

Slow Roasted Dutch Oven Lamb Shoulder Roasts or Shanks with Tomatoes, Onions, Garlic, and Rosemary

© FarmgirlFare.com, the garlic breath foodie farm blog where try as I might, I am obviously incapable of writing a short garden blog post—and isn't it wild how different the colors are in the sunny garlic bed photos vs. the cloudy one?

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