Shiso, Basil, Mint, Veggies and Flowers in Summer Splendor
Summer is in full swing, and there's so much to enjoy in the garden this week. Let's take a look together!
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Things are happening fast in the garden. I’m just trying to hold on and enjoy it all while summer is flying by. I’m grateful beyond measure for the gorgeous yield unfolding before my eyes. Here are some garden gems this week:
🪴Shiso
Here are two of my shiso varieties in the garden this year: hojiso from Japan, and 38n-kkaennip from Korea. Shiso, also known as perilla, is such a delightfully fragrant and flavorful herb in the mint family Lamiaceae. It’s especially enjoyed in the cuisines of Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.
I have several varieties of shiso in the garden this year, in gorgeous shades of green and red. I’m developing several exciting recipes with these special herbs. This is a rewarding and easy-to-grow herb for both your garden and your cooking.
🌿Basil
After starting out like gangly teenagers as they always do, my 45 varieties of basil this year are finally beginning to thrive. It’s so thrilling to see, smell, and taste these gloriously unique varieties from all over the globe.
I’m so excited to begin documenting the scents and flavors of these varieties to share with you. And to compare them to the 38 phenomenal types that I grew last year: 38 Types of Basil You Need to Grow in Your Herb Garden.
The spectrum of colors and flavors among all 83 type that I’ve grown over these past 2 years is truly stunning! And there are, of course, still many varieties I still have yet to grow. Here are some of them I’ve captured in photos this week:
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be trimming the basil flowers to encourage the plants to continue their lush vegetative growth. (And these flowers are amazing in iced tea, salads, dressings, simple syrups, desserts, etc. So I never let them go to waste!)
This regular pruning will allow the plants to grow spectacularly large as they maintain optimal flavor and leaf tenderness. I hope I’ll have several weeks more to enjoy them and watch them thrive before the nighttime temperatures begin to drop, starting their yearly decline.
🍃Mint
This is a wonderful year for mint! I have 54 varieties this year, from all over the world. Including beloved heirlooms and exciting niche scents as well. The plants are now tall and strong enough for me to trim off the tops to encourage side shoots to form. And, like with the basil, to prevent the plants from becoming woody or diverting their energy to flowering. We want to preserve tender leaves and flavor while we can.
I’m really looking forward to smelling and tasting all of these! And for my local readers, you know I’ll need taste testers soon to help me document all of the wonderful nuances of each one. This’ll be such a fun project to share with all of you.
For a look at the 17 mints I grew last year, and taste-tested various combinations of them in a classic mint liqueur recipe, please check out my post Homemade Crème de Menthe Guide: 6 Versions Reviewed.
🌱Other Herbs
And here are some other herbs in the garden this week:
🥕Veggies
And here are the veggies ripening this week:
Freshly-picked baby carrots and dirty nails, my epitome of happiness! I’ve planted my carrots too intensively, which gives me the opportunity to thin them out and enjoy these babies early in the season. This allows the remaining carrots in the ground to grow to full size. These small ones are so wonderful and tender in their bejeweled tones.
🥕For an irresistibly fresh carrot recipe, please check out my post Heirloom Carrots with Chermoula (Carottes à la Chermoula).
🌶️And for a really flavorful worldwide heirloom pepper guide, please check out my post 31 Peppers to Grow, Harvest, Dry, Smoke, Grind, and Enjoy!
🍅For an easy, delectable summer pasta with heirloom tomatoes, please see my post Easy Vegan Pasta with Garden Heirloom Tomato Sauce Vierge. It’s so quick and flavorful, and we all adore it. We’ve been really enjoying it this week! And the post has photos of a wide variety of heirloom tomatoes from my garden.
I managed to salvage a few fresh fava beans before the black aphids took over all of them. Despite crop rotation, these pests have found my favas 2 years in a row. And I only have so much time to keep blasting them off with a hose.
Next year I’ll be more vigilant with my neem oil and BT (bacillus thuringiensis), which are really helpful for organic insect control. I’ve also picked pods of both these fava beans and also some peas that were past ripe, to save for seed next year.
Here’s a really opportune and special weed find! This is purslane, growing among my newly-planted Spanish thyme plants. This delightful green is crisp, with a lively savory and tangy flavor. Purslane is a common weed in many home gardens.
I’ve bought seeds for both green and golden purslane, but these guys showed up in my garden all on their own. Such a wonderful treasure.
One way we like to enjoy purslane is raw, lightly dressed with hazelnut or walnut oil and coarse sea salt. My son Remy invented this method when he was little, and he called it “salad and bot.” We still enjoy salad and bot, which has expanded in our family’s definition to include any salad greed dressed in this delightful way!
These flowers are from either Dutch yellow shallots. They arrived along with the huge load of seed garlic I’d ordered, and I hadn’t even remembered planting them or the red shallot variety alongside. Such a nice surprise!
The potato plants of my 28 heirloom varieties this year are really coming along well. I love the charming flowers, which along with the leaves can often show a nod to the potato color. This all blue one is especially revealing, in both the bloom color and the veining on the leaves.
🌻Flowers
The edible blooms this year are really brightening up the garden beds. Here are some beauties this week:
And to close us out this week, here are some snapdragons I started from seed under my grow lights. They germinate slowly, but there’s such a gorgeous array of colors available to experience when growing them this way!
I hope you’re all enjoying your summer. I’ll let you know how the garden is doing, and I’ll keep posting flavorful plant-based recipes from around the world as well.
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🌱Shell