Tag Archives: basil

Ye Olde Garden

Seed starting 2011 part 1 and blues speculation

12/31/10 Iona Clear Blue Pansy on display at Arboretum Trial gardenIt snowed today, first snow of 2011. Good thing I broke out the grow lights from the shed earlier this week. I am reusing the Burpee grow system, minus their grow pellets. The man bought me two bags of seed starting soil, which I packed in half of the plastic cells. This morning I got to sow some seeds:  6x Red Rubin Basil, 6x Thai Basil, 6x Jupiter Bell Pepper, 6x Calico Ornamental Pepper, 6x Purple Flash Ornamental Pepper, 2x unnamed Thai Chili, and 4x Pansy seeds which I “borrowed” from the Arboretum trial gardens…I believe the cultivar was Iona Heavenly Blue.

I also planted a rosemary cutting which had a single root after about a week sitting in water. I have another sprig of rosemary and a red dianthus chinensis sitting it water, waiting to see them root. I need to remember to take some cuttings of the verbena and the felicia daisy.

While my attention is on the blue flowers, I must express my affection for the felicia daisy which has bloomed sporadically up to this month. This Cape Town Blue daisy has displayed amazing tolerance for the heat and cold, enduring the summer in a planter, and now mulched int the blue bed. I have tried to capture seeds from it to no avail; so perhaps taking some cuttings may work.

I also have hopes to see the Diana Blueberry dianthus blooms, though I know it won’t come even close to a true blue. Even so, a pale lavender will be a rare sight to see on a dianthus. Speaking of dianthus, these are the only seedlings that I’m aware of that have made it to the garden. The Red Peppermint dianthus seedlings unfortunately perished–to the best of my knowledge–due to heat well before they made it into the ground. I believe the dianthuses in the purple garden were all store-bought this year, and there are some purple, picotees and parfaits that have endured.

As I am browsing my camera pics, I am reminded of the beauty of the annual phlox, however fleeting it was. It seems that growing them from seeds may be too challenging for the home gardener, since I have yet to find any outlets offering them. I believe the 4 specimens that I picked up at Covington’s this last year were of the Phoenix Sky variety, a lovely pale purple star surrounded by white-cream. I’ll keep hunting, though reading suggest that these phloxes are cool-weather annuals.

The angelonia have succumbed finally to the winter cold; the purple variety which seemed a bit sturdier has browned like the whites. It’s amazing how these angelonia have grown so tall and wide from modest specimens. They definitely need more room if we plan on using them again next year.

Ye Olde Garden

One month later

The winter garden is finally shuttering up the show. The annual holdouts such as the angelonia and the ornamental peppers have given up their last seasonal colors. The man and I had done some diligent pruning and clean up of the front beds, such as shearing back the gaura, removing dead coleus and cutting back the salvias, including the Victoria Blues. I had planted some violas and ornamental cabbages/kale in the gardenia bed, which have been blanketed by fall debris. Too bad we didn’t have a way to compost all the autumn leaves; that’s a project for next year, hopefully. 

The purple garden has been cleaned of the dried out ornamental peppers. I’ve also removed as much of the bicolor salvia as I could. Here’s to hoping that my reseeding efforts will bear fruit in the spring. I’ve sprinkled as much of the seeds closer to the side of the house, where it’s been a challenge to grow anything. The only plant that’s managed to endure in the damp ground that killed off a lavender and a rosemary is the citronella plant  (Orange Fizz) which has soared to a whopping 3 feet high. Time will tell if it can survive the frost. Future plans: rearrange lorapetalum and purple salvias in a straight line, plant Picasso and Devils Wine callas.

I’ve gone ahead and planted the blueberry dianthus in the blue bed, after uprooting and repotting the plumbago and applying a generous layer of mulch. I’ve also taken some rooted bits of Wood’s Blue aster and replanted them. I finished off the bed with plantings of violas. It is perhaps the only color left…the oxalis top growth are turning an unflattering shade of brown.

I am happy to see that the herb garden is thriving, thanks to departure of the basil plants. The rosemary is enjoying good circulation, full sun and perhaps has grown more in the last few weeks than it has all summer. The oreganos, thyme and pineapple mint are sprawling happily…too happily in fact, since I’ve had to shear back the mint. I am hoping to clone the Hot & Spicy Oregano in the opposite corner of the bed, so that I can have a second specimen. The man and I have decided on two priorities for this herb garden in 2011: 1) plant only basil in this bed, and 2) purchase some fencing to keep the pups out. We might just pot up the pepper plants or set them up in a separate bed.

I’ve removed some of the Flame Callas from the courtyard flower bed. The bed is looking rather bare, especially with the annual azaleas dying off. I plan on moving the daylilies in this bed as well as transplanting the rest of the callas out. I hope to get some more red and white dianthus to completely border the bed. Some more of those chocolate ajuga might produce a red, white, and blue border in the spring. The question is: what shrubbery to plant for next year?

Shade garden: more ferns, caladiums and nandinas perhaps. I definitely want to look into variegated liriope as an option. I hope the hakonechloa come back.

Speaking of which, those dwarf mondo grasses bordering our gravel extension are doing quite well. I hope they will grow hardy in time for next summer’s drought and heat.

Dining, Recipes

Basil Garlic Mayonnaise

It’s been awhile since I posted a recipe for anything, so to get rolling on this, I’m starting with something easy.

Something about growing your own herbs in your own backyard makes for truly delightful home cooking. Basil has been the easiest to grow in our Texas climate, and I have 3 varieties of them in our herb garden: Sweet, Thai and Lime. With plenty of sun, good soil and regular watering, 2 basil plants is plenty enough for your summer menus. I usually harvest the leaves by trimming the tops, and the basil responds by putting out new growth within a couple of days.

Because we’ve been doing a lot of grilling lately, I’ve been kicking up my burgers with a basil-garlic-mayo concoction. Goes great with deli sandwiches, egg, and tuna salad too.

Handful of Sweet Basil (1/2 cup)
10-15 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 small lemon (or lime), halved
1/2-2/3 cup of mayonnaise
ground black pepper
salt
sriracha sauce (optional)
1 tablespoon mustard (optional

Chop the garlic and basil, then place in food processor. Pulse until finely chopped, drizzle in olive oil and squeeze in juice from half a lemon. Continue to pulse-blend until a paste–or leave finely chopped if you would like some color and texture in your mayo spread. Pour basil-garlic paste into a bowl, mix in mayonnaise. Squeeze in the other half of lemon juice . Season with pepper and salt. For a little heat, add a squeeze of sriracha sauce.

For other variations, I’ve halved the amount of sweet basil and used lime basil to give this mayo more punch. Instead of lemon or lime, I’ve used mustard instead.

Ye Olde Garden

Rise of the summer-heat lovers

The spring show is wrapping up…the last Navona lily wears its white crown in a garden bed that is gathering itself for 100+ degree weather. We had made the mistake of laying out some pots of new impatiens that we purchased at Strong’s Nursery on Saturday only to discover that the sizzling heat had baked the flowers off by Sunday.

The plants that we had positioned in the newly prepped herb garden also suffered from the heat. I fear that the pineapple mint suffered the worst, perhaps irrecoverable. The rest perked back up, especially the ornamental peppers, after liberal watering. We also added a few more plants to the herb garden: 2 Thai basils, one Sweet Basil, another Lime Basil, three types of peppers (Fresno Chili, Bonnie Bell, and one whose name I forget at the moment). I also took two of the lemon thyme cuttings and transplanted it into the bed.

I also planted a recently acquired Mint Julep Calla lily under the shade of the burgeoning Hot Lips salvia sitting in the courtyard flower bed. What was once barely a foot high is now a rounded 3-foot specimen of green. It is currently in between flower displays, but I hope it will perk back up soon.

Lastly I planted the Imperial Dark Blue Plumbago by the fence, sharing the bed with the struggling Nepeta and the newly-budding yarrows. Time will tell if the plumbago can stand the partial shade conditions.

Speaking of shade, the crape myrtles providing most of the cover to our corner flower beds have started blooming. In the front yard is a light pink specimen. The myrtle in the courtyard, nearest the fence door, is a “lavender” or purple variety. The other myrtle hasn’t staged a reveal yet, but I’m betting it is purple as well. This revelation was a lot more pleasant than expected–I was dreading that the myrtles would be of the Pepto-Bismol pink shade. Lucky us!