How to Prune Basil

This week, we harvested the first fruits of the 2010 season: snap peas (Oregon Sugar Pod; Sugar Ann) and basil (Genovese, the traditional pesto variety, and Lettuce Leaf, a slightly more spicy, ruffled-leaved plant).



It is important to prune basil correctly if you want to get the most out of your plants. This is very easy to do if you understand how the basil plant grows. In the picture below, you can see the growing habit of the young basil plant. This picture was taken on May 30, two weeks after we transplanted the basil. Look at the two large plants in the middle of the image. You can see how as the plant grows upward from a primary stem, new leaves sprout at the leaf nodes (center, right).


These new sprouts will grow into individual stems (center, left). If you cut the primary stem just above the leaf node, these new stems will grow strong and the plant will develop a branching habit. And you will enjoy an abundant harvest all summer.

Planting Tomatoes

Healthy tomatoes, ready to plant:


The blank canvas:


Andrea, Brent and Sande planting the Tennessee Green tomatoes:

2010 Garden: Starting from Seed

"I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to
observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a rose of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green." (from Mosses from an Old Manse, 1854) -- Nathaniel Hawthorne

2010 starts, as of May 2:

2010 plans (very scientific, no?):

2010 starts, as of May 14 ready for planting (and yes, that is a toilet in the upper right: evidence of bathroom remodeling):

2010 plants on May 15: