that is a lot of basil

One day, in the dead of winter (here in southern California, haha), I’ll look back at this photo and think, damn, I cannot believe I’m paying $2.99 for a teeny pack of basil at the supermarket:

Two major developments at the garden today.

1. We arrived to find that one of the Brandywine plants fell over. Cage and all. Thankfully it didn’t snap so we were able to stake it back upright. It’s pretty amazing how plants can be so resilient.

2. We dismantled the Brandywine SIP. It produced a whopping total of two tomatoes, pictured above. (At least the ripe one is proper beefsteak size.) We needed more bamboo stakes to reinforce the in-ground tomatoes, and there weren’t any more fruits on the plant, so too bad. Andrew disengaged the top bucket from the bottom bucket and a tangle of roots was sticking out, drawing water from the bottom bucket. Wonder why the plant still ended up so spindly. Clearly, this experiment with the SIPs is not going too well.

Overall, we have a sh*tload of green tomatoes that are getting pretty ginormous, and now I’m worried that the stems will snap from the weight. Someone suggested using pantyhose. When was the last time anyone bought pantyhose?? However, I will suck up my pride and do it, if need be.