Janie,

What is your pesto recipe? And how do you freeze your basil? It is my experience that freezing any herb is tantamount to freeze-drying them. To keep the coriander/cilantro flavor I want for beans I put it in a pie pan, pour a little boiling water over it to wilt the leaves, then freeze the whole thing. I pull out my block of ice and chip off enough for whatever I'm using it in. I want to make pesto, I've picked up a couple of recipes, but the more information the better.

I've been picking and drying oregano off and on all summer, I trim off any flowers or seed heads and then dry the leaves so I don't have to sort it out later. The basil went to seed but I've had great luck cutting branches and giving them to people only the have to plant grow back new great looking branches very quickly. And of course it is seeding itself in the garden and I have plants all over. (I love it!) I was over at the ex's house last weekend and it smelled strongly of oregano. I've been sending these herbs home with him and he has basil, oregano and rosemary drying all over the kitchen.

I think that for all of the time I've been a gardener, one of the things I will never get tired of is that there is usually enough to share, and it's so nice to be able to send people home with fresh grown things that they really appreciate receiving. Or to be talking to someone in the yard and be able to reach over and pick a nice tomato or squash or something and send them on their way. I'm thinking about taking up the practice I read about somewhere (maybe here) of planting something down by the street so people can help themselves from that plant as they walk by. If no one picks it, I'll harvest it, but tomatoes or peppers, I think they'd go quickly and they're easy to pick (eggplant have such tough stems you practically destroy the plant if you don't have a blade of some sort with you). What do you think? I already know that people regularly pick twigs of rosemary off of the bush I have growing next to the street in my front yard.

SRS