Ah, summer. Finally! After seemingly endless months of teasing, Mother Nature has granted us sunshine. In the Pacific Northwest, that isn’t a very long time, so I don’t bother to do much of a garden.  Well, okay.  Fine!  So that’s just a convenient excuse.  🙂

I usually start out with great intentions for an honest-to-goodness garden I can be proud of, and I even put the plants in myself.  With gloved hands, of course.  (Dirt — ICK!)  But, see, that’s when the problem starts.  The plants grow.  And they get too demanding.  (Guess they don’t care I’m a writer, either! – Sniff)  They want to be watered and fertilized.  Then weeds sprout and have to be pulled.  And Ohmigod, the SLUGS!  They’re just GROSS!  (I swear the six-inch sucker I saw the other day had me screaming.  *Shudder*  Which would’ve been acceptable if it was later than 6 a.m.)

This summer, I vowed, would be different.  Not only would I enjoy the sunshine and all the great outdoor activities, but this summer, I’d also plant something edible, and let it grow enough to be consumed.

With that in mind, I put some basil plants in a pot.  (Hey, herbs count, don’t they?)  I watered them, laid a slug bait barrier down, and the stinking things actually grew!  (Funny how that works.)  After a blast of warm weather, the basil was ready to be made into my version of Pesto.  Yum!

I took this:

Blended it with olive oil and other stuff:

Turned it into this:

Then put it on baked cod like this:

I also figured it was about time I fed my family a meal that didn’t come in a can!  (Don’t get used to it!)

Okay, dinner’s over.  Back to work.

-Melia