On 8/7/2017 9:05 PM, Wayne Boatwright wrote:
> On Sun 06 Aug 2017 05:18:59a, George Shirley told us...
>
>> On 8/5/2017 8:26 PM, Wayne Boatwright wrote:
>>> On Thu 03 Aug 2017 08:04:45a, George Shirley told us...
>>>
>>>> Yesterday we picked a peck of basil, washed it down, patted it
>>>> dry between old towels (handiest things in the world), then into
>>>> the dehydrator, all ten piled up. Let the dehydrator run from
>>>> about 9pm last night until about 7am this morning. Just right
>>>> dryness so into our miscellaneous containers we hoard and now in
>>>> the darkness of the canning pantry. That's a lot of basil but
>>>> our many children, grands, etc. like to get free stuff and we
>>>> use a lot of basil in homemade dishes.
>>>>
>>>> Looks like rain all this week but we need the water. So, we're
>>>> thinking of another rain dance, behind the six foot fence of
>>>> course, don't want to have the police called on me jumping
>>>> around with feathers and a breech cloth. It ain't a pretty sight
>>>> at my age but, sometimes, the rain does come.
>>>>
>>>> George
>>>>
>>>
>>> I wish we had easy access to large quantities of basil. I like
>>> to use it in so many things, and if I make pesto it takes quite a
>>> lot of it. When I do make pesto I freeze it and it tastes like it
>>> was just made when it's thawed and used on pasta or in some other
>>> dishes or sauces.
>>>
>> Easy enough Wayne, we lived in a "town house" in Saudi and I made
>> wooden "pots", filled with store bought dirt, etc. and had all the
>> herbs we wanted. Get you a couple of pots on your patio, mix
>> "Black Cow", sand and dirt, plant the seeds and jump back. Your
>> climate is almost the same as when we lived overseas. Herbs like
>> sun and heat as long as they get water. A sleeve of basil seeds is
>> dirt cheap at most stores that carry seeds.
>>
>> We just pulled our crop of basil and we washed, air dried, then
>> dehydrated three one gallon plastic bags and into the pantry in
>> the dark. As the basil was growing we pulled leaves for our iced
>> tea, wife makes basil tea for coughs, etc. plus she just likes it.
>>
>> We had a little strip of sand along the patio wall that had some
>> veggies, etc. growing in it. I built a shade and screwed it on a
>> wall there and hung my orchid collection under it. They did well
>> and we sold them at a premium when we left Saudi to go home. We
>> had some exotic flower trees there too. If the place you live in
>> allows such things you can do wonders without a lot of money and
>> work.
>>
>> I'm sitting here hoping the clouds I see this morning have some
>> rain in them. Electric bills here are going sky high, two days of
>> 100 to 101 Fahrenheit drives the AC harder. This has been a
>> strange year for Houston area, January dropped two hard freezes on
>> us and now we're broiling. I could probably make some beef jerky
>> out there.
>>
>> George
>>
>
> It's 7:00 p.m. and still 105°F., so I can easily appreciate hot
> weather issues. It's also monsoon season right now and we've had
> spradic thunderstorms and buckets of rain that we're happy to get.
>
> We can have anything we want on our patio, plant wise. I'll see if I
> can convince David to try the basil as you suggested. It's worth a
> try and much too expensive to buy a few springs at the supermarket
> unless you're only using it as a garnish.
>
> We have about half shade on the patio and our snake plants and rubber
> trees are huge, as well as the cactii. when we've bought flowering
> plants, though, they have simply withered and died from the heat,
> even though they get plenty of water.
>
> They have fried eggs on blacktop surfaces out here. You just have to
> remember never to go barefoot. :-)
>
>
Basil does well in partial shade, ours is planted in a corner of the
fence where the fig tree lives. All of our various herbs live in that
corner. I'm still trying to correct my wife's idea of putting flowers
around the fruit trees and near the herbs. Flowers, in my opinion, just
suck the good stuff out of the ground and lets my herbs and fruit tree
go hungry.

We had lots of rain yesterday and, so far, looks like a lot more today.
Sometimes we are blessed with free water and sometimes we aren't.
Houston area is well known for lots of rain broken by lots of sunshine.
Today we are blessed.