Thinking Aloud » Gardening

Freshly Made Pesto from Home Grown Basil

Jeff — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 20:47:27 +0000

Heather and Jon have inspired me to try my hand at making fresh pesto from my basil plants. So tonight was the night! I cut my basil plants down to their lowest leaves and managed to collect 3 cups of basil. One recipe, and a blender later we have home made pesto. On first taste it is a wee bit salty but on second taste it is delicious. Now to make some gnocchi…

The picture doesn’t do it justice, it is intensely green. So GREEN

The Pesto Recipe

2 cups packed fresh basil

Just over a 1/4 cup of olive oil

1-2 cloves garlic

1/2 tsp salt

Pepper to taste

1/2 cup parmesan cheese (bulk section type stuff)

3 tblsns pine nuts or blanched almonds

2 tblspns freshly grated pecorino romano cheese (or fresh parmesan from a chunk of cheese)

Blend it all together, taste, alter to what you like, but that is how we do ours!

I didn’t have any pecorino romano cheese so I just skipped that part. Of course I haven’t eaten all the pesto so the plan is to preserve it in the freezer in a yogurt container. That said I hope to eat it very soon.

The Garden Plan

Jeff — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 15:57:43 +0000

The 4th floor of an apartment building is not a great place to be a gardener, but that's where I live, so what am I to do! Try anyways!

Here's the plan,
2 hanging baskets
– The herb basket, thyme, parsley and chives (I didn't have good luck with chives last year… but I'll try again!)

– The strawberry basket. Apparently you can get alpine strawberries which do really well in baskets. I hope for an abundant crop

The short term investments
A pot for lettuce or mesculun mix
A pot for squash
A pot for rhubarb (I never would have thought this would work, but apparently you just have to keep it well watered)

Those plants I've already started
Pots for tiny tim tomatos
Pots for kale
Pots for broccoli
Pots for the green peppers

The long term investment
A dwarf plum tree in a pot (big pot)

So that's the plan for this years 4th floor garden, now to try it out!

Photo by cjohnson7 from Flickr

Gardening Becomes Me

Jeff — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:34:53 +0000

Well, My adventures into gardening have began. I didn't think that I would get much chance to garden being as how I'm a 4th floor apartment dweller. But I really couldn't wait so. I bought a 2 dollar seed incubator (which is basically a small green house for sprouting seeds) That was two weeks ago.

The vegi's that I'm trying out are broccoli, kale, tiny tim tomatos and green peppers. And after two weeks everything has come up. We have got lots of sprouts, Now I'm starting to wonder where I'm going to put all these plants when they grow tall. That being said I'm sure I'll find a place.

So here's my pictures to show my progress so far. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep this little picture journal going to show an apartment garden in all its splendor grown from the seeds up.

The Kale has been planted

Jeff — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 16:14:17 +0000

In an effort to live off the land in my 4th floor apartment, I have planted kale, mint and chives. I plan to live on these through the winter months… Hopefully not exclusively!

The Mint and Chives were easyt since some one at Canadian Tire managed to provide already growing plants. But the kale I'm growing from seed and by all reports if it grows I am going to be swimming in kale. My 2.5 foot by 1 foot balcony planter completely overwhelmed. I hope that is the problem I have to deal with instead of the trying to figure out how I am going to eat a plant so small!!

If this project succeeds I will consider myself a vegetable green thumb of the lowest level of expertise. Lord knows I am not a decorative plant green thumb… I just can't seem to care about those beautiful beautiful plants that i can't eat.