our garden has really produced this year.

early on we had bowl after bowl full of strawberries, handfuls of raspberries, and our first real harvest of blueberries (which we are still collecting by the handful every few days).

our greens came on strong and have added to ryan’s green smoothies almost every morning.

we have also made collard greens from the garden multiple times in the last few weeks.

our bush pickle cucumbers are producing enough for me to produce a quart of pickles each of the last two weeks and there are still many more flowers and babies on the vines.

we had an issue with our green beans so i am not sure how many we will get, but we still have a couple jars of dilly beans from last year!

i collect a few cherry tomatoes each day from my trailing cherry tomato plant that is hanging in a basket.

our san marzano and roma tomatoes are a little late to fruit, but it looks like we will get a great crop. considering the fact that we started these plants from seed in our house, i am super impressed that they made it! i am looking forward to harvesting and canning a bunch…maybe even pickling green tomatoes late in the season.

we winter over some of our herbs…thyme, basil, mint, and chives. they are doing well…in fact, we took a bunch up to the lake and still have a bunch to harvest.  we have tried drying herbs, but usually end up making pesto from our basil and using the rest of our herbs fresh when we cook.

i planted a few different types of basil this year. our usual sweet italian basil, a purple basil (which is supposed to taste like sweet italian, but i thought it would be fun to have purple pesto), a variegated basil, and a thai basil.

with all of that being said, i decided to try to make a thai basil pesto with our beautiful thai basil.

thai food is tough for me…i like the flavors of the herbs and spices, but i dislike coconut and peanut. most of the thai basil recipes called for peanuts…and in some cases, coconut of some sort (oil, water, or shredded).

so, i made up my own recipe…

thai basil pesto

• 2 cups thai basil leaves
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1 tbsp ginger, chopped
• 1/2 cup olive oil (i bet you could substitute coconut oil if you like the flavor)
• 2 tbsp lime juice
• 1 tsp red pepper

put it in your food processor, pulse a few times. then, blend until smooth.

place in airtight containers and freeze or keep in refrigerator.

home is…coming up with your own recipe.