basil, basil everywhere

Maybe there is such a thing as too much basil. Here's what I brought in yesterday. Here's what I cut today, along with several carrots the deer have ignored. That's a lot of basil, and there's more where this came from! Not to mention out back, in the water garden. Last year, it produced a ton of basil.

This year, there's Genovese basil (the standard), African blue basil, Box globe basil and cinnamon basil. All of which is trying very hard to flower and go to seed. With nary a tomato in sight.

Sigh. . . .

Well then, next up: pesto! If we don't have tomatoes to do caprese we'll have to do pasta with pesto. So there! I think I have all the ingredients on hand.

But first, wash, dry and strip basil leaves. From yesterday's harvest, I got 2 gallon ziplock bags of leaves, and what look like tobacco stains on my fingers. Oh, and a headache and a backache. . . . I'm not exactly looking forward to smelling basil for another 3 or 4 hours today, or stripping off the teeny-tiny box basil leaves. But I suspect I'll be pleased in the middle of the winter when we can pull out a basil-ly green bag of frozen summer! (at least that's what I'm telling myself for motivation now).