Basil

 (Originally posted on WP 9/10/20.)

Basil

I’ve had 7 pots of basil growing indoors since at least springtime, if not from last year.  I used to grow it outdoors in pots lined up on the rear deck, which gave them enough sun. but found that as soon as cooler nights set in, the basil would shrivel up, pretty quickly too! 

So I said the heck with that, and have had them in the living room, which faces south, and with no shade trees, so they get plenty of sun every day.

Harvesting and drying the leaves has been on my very long To-Do list, for quite awhile. I hemmed and hawed over it, as regular hanging upside down to dry *anything* has never worked well for me – likely as the east coast climate is just too humid.

I did blend and freeze basil one year, but hubby prefers dried basil in his marinara and bolognese sauces, so I Googled, and found this easy oven-dry method.

The oven temp knob on our old gas stove was so worn off, it involved guess-work! This new-to-us gas stove has an electronic temp thing. It only goes down to 170º which I thought might be too warm, but it worked!

2 pans of washed and patted dry basil leaves yielded 1/2 of a disused 5” tall herb container. 2 pans in the oven never work as well as one pan, so the bottom pan dried first, then the top one needed more time.

I had also seen that one can propagate basil stems into new plants, although, LOL, all these stems are stripped, for drying the leaves. 

They may or may not grow roots – will see!  

Onward,
Dawn