My Little Corner | April Garden Update

It's been two months since I last posted about our mini garden. That time, I shared our harvests and how I cooked them and served them for the family. We've harvested a lot since then, especially the tomatoes and the bird chilies. It's so amazing how we never run out of tomatoes in the past couple of months.

While all of these are happening, guess what has been thriving so well in their little corner?

Yes! My basil!

These little babies have gone through many different homes already. If you will check this basil post back in September 2020 you will see how healthier and more luscious they are now. They have been repotted many times, from when I tried to grow them indoors and then finally putting them outside of the house.

Finally, in February this year, I had the chance to put them in a much bigger pot. This is actually the pot where I previously grew my lettuce. When I finally harvested the lettuce, I tried to sprinkle some basil seeds in hopes of growing them there, but only one survived. Eventually, I just decided to transfer the existing basil plants to this pot.

Look at how big they have grown in just a span of two months! (You can click the images to enlarge them.)

Pruning

I prune them regularly and almost every 1.5 weeks I have a decent amount of basil leaves that I make into pesto.

The basil leaves have also become significantly bigger/wider than they were when they were still potted individually. The pots were still small and could not sustain the nutrient needs of the plants.

Basil leaves from the big pot (much bigger).	Smaller leaves. September 2020.

What's lovely about pruning is that it forces the plant to grow more stems from where you prune them. Hence each time I pick from one stem, it will grow two stems from that.

Below is a 3-day growth after pruning.

Cooking with basil.

My family loves pasta so each time I cook spaghetti with tomato sauce, basil is never missed out.

As I mentioned above, I love making pesto immediately after pruning the basil. Below is one of the dishes I cooked just a few days ago.

_{Baked Pesto Penne Pasta}

Have you tried adding basil when cooking rice? In the Philippines, my grandma loved to add pandan leaves to the rice, or we put a layer of banana leaves at the bottom of the pot, to add a hint of sweetness to it. But I have never tried using basil.

I recently learned this from @virgo27. He loves cooking and I love flaunting my mini basil garden to him! :p When he saw my basil, he suggested that I add them to the rice when cooking. The herb will add a sweet aroma and taste to the rice.

It is much better if the leaves are broken into smaller pieces so that the flavor would be more distinct.

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Romaine Lettuce.

I still have lots of lettuce seeds so while I was still preparing the compost in another large pot, I started germinating some seeds already.

I have just finished repotting all of them today. The photo at the right shows the newly transplanted lettuce from two days ago. I ran out of space and had the ones on the left photo remaining. For these, I repurposed a gallon of water bottle and made it into a pot.

Hopefully, I will have a positive update to share in the coming weeks regarding the progress of these lettuce plants. The weather is already becoming hotter by the day, and the plants may not be able to withstand the heat. I may just transfer the pot in a spot with more shade, or hub is planning to put a net to give a bit of a shield against the direct sunlight.

Whichever way, I hope they will survive.

How about you? What are you growing in your garden?

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This post is in response to the Garden Journal challenge, hosted by @riverflows, that you can find here.