Farm Fresh Blog

     I kill plants. I am the Dr Kevorkian of plants.  If a plant wants to die, I will help it. Actually, if it doesn't want to die, I will help that one die too. If you have four legs, I will keep you alive, but if you have a stem and are stuck in a pot . . . things just ain't lookin' good for ya 'round here.

     I'm the kind of person who picks up a little potted plant at the nursery and it screams to be put back in the flat with its buddies. For that little plant knows it has a better shot at survival by getting the occasional watering at Home Depot than taking its chances with me.

     But this year I planted two tomatoes and a basil in one big pot on my back porch.  I would water it when I watered the dogs.  How hard would that be?  The sheep and goats are there from time to time, but they ignore the pot because they'd rather eat my roses.

     And so it was that I found soon myself with thick basil amid ripening tomatoes.  Who says I have a black thumb? I examined my crop of basil last week and proclaimed it to be enough to make pesto. This is how the pesto adventure went:

Go to store. Buy pine nuts. Buy cheese. Buy garlic. Olive oil?  No, have that.  Get home. Discover that I have no olive oil. Cuss.  Wait a week. Have even more basil now. Go back to store. Buy olive oil.  Come home to discover that dairy goats have eaten all the basil while I was gone . . .