My Homegrown Basil Experiment

Hello Friends,

We love eating basil, whether it be fresh in salads or pesto in summer, or dehydrated to add to dishes in winter, so back in the winter of 2022, I added three different types of basil seeds to my Kings seeds order. As I have a PhD in plant biochemistry, I'm always up for experimenting with new plants to see how they grow and what their harvests are like.

The three varieties of basil I chose were, Organic Basil Sweet Genovese, Basil Gustosa, and Basil Lettuce Leaf. Sweet Genovese is the basil everyone usually thinks of when it comes to pesto, and also for eating fresh. This basil tastes fresh and clean, and grows well in a glasshouse, and is the type I've grown for years. Basil Gustosa is also a Sweet Genovese type, but was bred for growing commercially in pots with vigorous growth and good disease resistance. Basil Lettuce Leaf is the strongest growing and most highly prolific of all basil varieties. The leaves are twice as large as normal basil leaves, and the leaves themselves are crinkly.

I sowed all the basil varieties in mid-September and grew them up in the glasshouse in pots until October when they were dug into the glasshouse soil.

The basil plants all grew strong and healthy. There was little difference in growth between the Sweet Genovese and Gustosa basil varieties, and they looked similar. The Basil Lettuce Leaf had leaves much bigger than the other two varieties, were lighter in colour, and they were very crinkly. During its growth the Basil Lettuce Leaf was attacked by caterpillars, where as the Sweet Genovese and Gustosa were not.

It wasn't long before our first basil harvest was picked.

Of the three basil varieties, Sweet Genovese basil was the most like the common basil grown and eaten. It had a sweet taste that wasn't too overpowering. The Gustosa leaves were similar in size to the Sweet Genovese basil, but it's taste was a little more peppery than Sweet Genovese. The Lettuce Leaf basil's leaves were much bigger, and had a slight aniseed taste.

We made a batch of pesto by combining all the basil types, and as you can imagine it was delicious. Because of how expensive pine nuts are, we usually use Mother Earth Slightly Salted Cashew Nuts in our pesto. We only buy them when they're on special, and they are salty enough that no extra salt is needed to make the pesto.

 

The bulk of our basil crop is dehydrated in our dehydrator for later use in the colder months. We bought our Sunbeam FoodLab Dehydrator in August 2022, and have used it nearly every day since then for drying herbs, flowers, fruit, and vegetables. We couldn't live without it now that we own one. We also bought some accessories for it online, so that we have more finer trays for herbs, and also more silicone non-stick sheets for making fruit leather.

Basil is dried in our dehydrator at 35˚C for a number of hours. It is ready when the leaves snap after they have been cooled to room temperature. After that they are stored in a glass container for 48 hours to check no further water has been released into the container.

When we dried all three varieties of basil in the dehydrator, both Sweet Genovese and Gustosa dried quickly. The Lettuce Leaf basil however, took a long time to dry as its leaves contained much more water than the other two varieties.

After the basil is dried I ground all the basil varieties together using our Breville Coffee and Spice Grinder. It is designed for grinding all sorts of herbs, spices, and also coffee, and we bought it online when someone was having a sale.

After experimenting with all these basil varieties over the Spring and Summer, I have decided that in future seasons I wish to grow only the Sweet Genovese and Gustosa varieties. Even though they do not have big leaves like the Lettuce Leaf Basil, they still have good plant growth, and are resistant to caterpillar attack. They also dry fast in the dehydrator, which is what we harvest most of our basil for. The mix of the two varieties also brings a good combination in terms of taste, so that's also a bonus.

I am having sinus surgery this Friday (17th March), and will be recovering for a couple of weeks, but have already prepared next weeks blog post for you.

Have a wonderful day,

Julie-Ann

Gardening - My Anemone and Collarette Dahlias

Hello friends,

Today I thought I'd share with you all the anemone and collarette dahlias dotted around my garden. Now that we're in autumn it's only a matter of time before the first frost of the season hits them, and the flowers and plants die down for the winter season.

My first introduction to dahlias was by my Aunt, who was a big dahlia collector when I was growing up. I remember many happy weekend afternoons following both, her and my grandfather around their back garden as they worked, and admiring my aunt's many dahlias. I thought they were big and beautiful, and wished for some of my own one day.

I started collecting dahlias myself when we were living in Wellington. I came upon a bedraggled dahlia tuber sitting in a bag at a garden store, and took it home in order to rescue it, and gave it a new home. That dahlia was Dahlia Lucky Number.

Dahlia Lucky Number is a big dahlia, measuring over 1.5 m tall and is a prolific flowerer, with hot pink flowers the size of a dinner plate. Because it is a collarette dahlia, with the heart of the flower exposed, it is very popular with both bees and butterflies. In truth, it is one of my favorite dahlias.

It wasn't long before I picked up another dahlia, this time the Keith Hammett bred (he's a New Zealand breeder) Dahlia Mystic Sparkler. Mystic Sparkler is another collarette dahlia, and has beautiful dark foliage which shows off the hot pink and yellow flowers. This dahlia is also attractive to birds and bees as well. This dahlia is compact, and grows well in pots and planters.

When we moved back to Dunedin in October 2019, my dahlias had already arrived ahead of me. The winter of 2019, I had dug up all my dahlias, trimmed them, and couriered them down to my sister in Dunedin, where she put them into her garden for the upcoming summer season. Once we had found a home down there, and after the summer season (and the first Covid 19 lock down), we dug all my dahlia tubers up, and I took them home to plant in the ground.

But meanwhile, in October 2019 after we had moved into our home, I couldn't resist picking up another Keith Hammett dahlia from the garden store, and planting it in my front garden. Dahlia Mystic Enchantment is a dahlia related to Mystic Sparkler. Mystic Enchantment has the same characteristics of Dahlia Mystic Sparkler, except it has florescent orange flowers, and is an anemone dahlia. Bees are also attracted to its flowers, and the plant is a very prolific flowerer.

More recently I've picked up another Keith Hammett Dahlia, this time the collarette dahlia, Protegee. It has the same dark foliage as Mystic Sparkler and Mystic Enchantment, but it's flowers are bright pink in the middle, surrounded by a lighter pink.

And another Keith Hammett Collarette dahlia I've also acquired recently is Dahlia Home Run. It has pretty, bright pink flowers, and adds nicely to my ever growing collection of Keith Hammett dahlias.

And as if I couldn't get enough of Keith Hammett's dahlias, he has a website where you can buy seed packets containing dahlias seeds from his breeding experiments. Each seed will give rise to a dahlia that has never been seen before. You will never know what you will get. I've bought seeds from his Beeline, Beeline II, and Sunflower collections, and sprinkled them around my garden. The photos below show the variation I've gotten so far from my seed sowing.

I have many more Keith Hammett dahlia seeds stored away, so who knows what colours I will get in the years to come as I sow more seed. But these aren't my only dahlias, I also have a number of stunning dinner plate and decorative dahlias also, and I will show you those as well in the coming weeks.

If you are new to dahlias, and are unsure how to look after some of you own, I really recommend the book, Discovering Dahlias, by Erin Benzakein. It contains detailed information on looking after dahlias, and has many great photographic examples on how to do things like dividing dahlias etc.

Autumn, is certainly settling in down here in the deep south, the nights are getting longer and cooler, and trees are starting to change colour. As I am having sinus surgery late next week, the next week in the garden will be very busy for me, getting jobs done before I will be recovering for the next three weeks after that. I have spring bulb orders arriving soon, and I would like to get them in the ground as soon as possible, otherwise hubby will have to do them for me, which should be fun...

Have a wonderful day,

Julie-Ann