The Return of the Gooseberry and a Last Basil Harvest

It seems that I am not running out of basil. How strange this place where we have an abundance, not knowing what to do with it all. One can only eat so much basil pesto before your body rejects it. One can only give away so much basil before your friends also become tired of it. In a previous post, I wrote that true abundance is a strange thing, we rarely know how to (responsibly) deal with it.

But before moving to the basil topic, player two has entered the game... The gooseberry has returned unannounced and without my permission, but I will allow it...

On the 30th of January, or the week just before that I began watering flower pots in which I sowed some basil seeds and amaranth seeds. The second flower pot did not yield any basil, or only something like two or three plants. But what emerged was the gooseberry, my old friend, or enemy since it spread its seeds all over my garden. Also, since the birds and squirrels found out about these little berries, I never harvested any for myself.

I gave up on trying to grow some gooseberries. But now, I watered them every day, seeing how they would grow. And it is just amazing how in such a short amount of time the plant stands almost 1.5 meters tall. The leaves are bigger than my hand, and I see little flowers already turning into fruits!

Alongside the gooseberries, the amaranth has now completely gone to seed. The bottom leaves are yellow, and the seed heads are getting nice and big, telling me that it is about to die in the coming weeks. Again, it is amazing that in 2 or 3 months, the growing season has stopped and we are heading towards autumn. Luckily, my growing season just shifts, as I can plant them again and they will grow, again.

But the basil is another situation. It does not want to stop growing. I am harvesting from it regularly, allowing it to grow into a nice and thick bush. As you harvest at the correct places, it yields two more sets of leaves. Like a hydra: cut off the head and two more will grow in its place.

This attentive and selective pruning and harvesting now puts me in the situation of having way too much basil. I am thinking of freezing some in olive oil or making some basil salt. In the photograph below-right, you can see just the amount of basil that I can harvest in one go, without even making a dent in the overall flower pot. I gave a whole bag of basil to our neighbour, but I am suspecting that they might not want more...

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In other parts of the garden, I have sowed some more swiss chard seeds. They are popping up everywhere as well. In the photograph below-left, there are luckily some seedlings sticking their heads from the ground. I only have a few plants left that survived the extreme summer heat. Now, I need to get some going again.

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In the photograph above-middle, you can see the new growth on the spekboom plants that I planted a month ago. I will be harvesting from them soon to make my family favourite spekboom chutney! I cannot wait to make this and add it to some freshly baked bread.

And lastly, the new garlic chives are growing slowly but well. In the above-right photograph, the little hairs are sticking out from the indigenous plants that always want to take over my garden.

On the left, you can see the never-ending supply of garlic chive blossoms as well. It seems like they are not stopping soon, as I also see some new blooms have not yet opened as well.

In the coming weeks, I will not be home. Hence the reason for the "last" basil harvest. I will leave the garden again in my family's hands, and I will "return" to my "other" garden which is a 1200 kilometres away from this garden. I might become the "travelling gardener!"

But I hope that your garden is blooming, yielding, and blessing you with all of the sensory delights it can give.

Happy gardening, and keep safe.

All of the writing in this post is my own, albeit inspired by the beauty of the garden. All of the photographs are my own, taken with my Nikon D300.