How to Be Awesome at Gardening: Part Two

Remember a while back I posted about my latest attempt to grow things here?  Well, now it's time for an update.

This is what my garden looked like when I planted it, and what it looks like now.

Yay!  Stuff is growing and not dying!  And best of all, I don't hate it.  Yes, ants have completely infested my box, which is terrifying.  And yes, the organic soil we use makes our backyard smell like a barnyard on warm, humid days.  Still, all things considered, it's going really well!

My pepper plants got these pretty flowers on them.

Then, a week or so later, they started growing peppers!  Huzzah!

My basil, though, is my favorite.  It grew so much!  I had to pinch off the flowers, though, because my mom warned me several times that terrible things happen if you don't.  The problem was that I didn't know they were flowers.  They were the same color as the leaves, only smaller and slightly pointier, so I thought they were just baby leaves.  Apparently that is incorrect.

So far, I have even remembered to water everything daily.  It makes me like rain even more, because it's like a get-out-of-watering-free day.

I also had to prune my basil because it was growing so much!  I cut about half of it off, and it still looks full and healthy!  This is how much I pruned off.

I hung some of it to dry,

and made pesto with the rest.  The recipe I used called for two cups of packed fresh basil leaves.

It was really easy.  I just put the leaves and 1/3 cup of pine nuts in the food processor and blended.  Then added three garlic cloves, blended some more, and then drizzled in 1/2 cup olive oil.  I blended in 1/2 cup parmesan and some salt, and it was ready!  So cool!

I even had a pesto jar that I had saved for just such an occasion.  It made it look so official!

The only problem I had while making the pesto was washing the basil!  Immediately, there was a spider on top of my bowl, with long, spindly legs and pincers and evil and stuff.  It was horrible, and I washed it down the drain and then drowned it with about a gallon of water while pouring in dish soap, just to be safe.

Also, the whole time I was washing the leaves, there were all these tiny green jumpy bugs that I had to keep killing.  I don't know what they were, but they were ridiculously fast.

Gardening is hard.

BUT yay for a garden doing garden-y things and not cemetary-y things!