Big Bloody Basil Bush

Before I start this chat can I just say how fantastic this rain is! My water tanks (Kaelan's clam shells) were starting to get a little low and quite a few of the plants were showing some signs of water deprivation. But two days of constant drizzle has fixed that problem right up.

Anyhow onto the story.......

It would appear that whatever combination of soil and sunlight and rain, plus the occasional watering, has led to an explosion of my basil bushes. I stand just under 180cm tall and you can see from the picture below that they are almost as tall as me and I would be unable to put my arms around them. At the moment the weight of the leaves are so heavy they are actually being held upright by strips of old sheet .

Never one to shy away from having a bit of a whinge when the occasion lends itself to do so, the extraordinary growth of this basil  has had a negative impact in the rest of the garden throughout the summer. When I planned out the summer crop I based it on what I thought would be the average height of the seeds that I was putting in. I am facing North so off to my right is east and the sun tends to follow an east to west trajectory throughout the summer. So everything that I planted 'behind' the basil which included corn, 3 types of chilli plants, capsicums and eggplants has had little to no sun. I now hear you thinking 'why didn't you just cut back the basil . You can't possibly eat it all before winter comes and kills it off'. Well....I did think about it but it was just too magnificent. Have you ever seen a basil plant that tall?  It's like, 2m and I wanted to see just how tall it would go.


Now that the weather has started to cool down I have noticed that some of the stalks are already starting to die off. We don't get frosts here but basil does not last in my backyard during winter.

Before consulting the ever knowing Yahoo7, garden forums or the opinions of others I considered some options:

Option 1. Build a greenhouse over the top of the raised garden bed- As well as protecting the bushes from the cold weather this would also have the advantage of keeping birds and other animals that love to munch on my plants away. But I really like the look of the open garden and watching Rosella's and other native birds sharing my tomatoes is pretty cool. I may change this view in the future but for now the bed remains open to the elements.

Option 2. Turn it into pesto- Fabulous idea but I would have to give most of it away as it would go off before I could eat it all. Not that I have any issues with giving away food that I have made. Its just I wanted to have some basil during the winter months.

Option 3. Freeze it- Now I didn't really know what would happen if I did freeze it. Would it turn to mush like chillies, would it turn black or would it dry out? 'Well why don't just try it and see what happens' was the sage advice of my wonderful wife Nicole. So I did. And a week later I took it out of the freezer and it had gone a little dark but upon thawing held it shape and would have quite usable for bruschetta.

The next piece of advice came from Patrizia at work who let me know that her and generations of her family and others from a similar cultural background had been freezing basil ever since Australian James Harrison developed the world first practical ice making machine and refrigeration system in 1857. Turn it into pesto, put in whole leaves whatever. It all works.

A little research on the Internet resulted in a wealth of information some of which was usable. One guys swears by using his food processor, with blade attachment, on a bunch of leaves and a little olive oil then putting them into ice trays.

All in all morale has started to climb. I no longer have to stand by and watch my 3m tall basil plants die of exposure.

The one thing everyone agrees on is that the freezing process does not work with wet leaves. 

Now if only this damn rain would stop.




If you enjoyed this story then you will enjoy Jade's quest for the perfect meal at thatperfectmeal.blogspot.com