Today I went to the garden and picked basil leaves. My husband and I love basil leaves, especially when it is cooked in a meal I made. The problem we found was that these plants make a lot of leaves and it’s hard to use them up before they go bad. We tried drying them but the dried basil doesn’t taste as good as the fresh basil from the garden.

My mother in law gave me a book from the 70’s called Stocking Up and in that book I found a way to preserve my basil and have it taste like it’s fresh from the garden. All you have to do is rinse it and steam it for 1 minute then put in freezer. Once it is frozen you can put in freezer bags and enjoy all year long. I use my rice cooker since it uses steam and it works great. This picture is after I have steamed the leaves and laid it in the freezer. I lay the wet basil on wax paper so it doesn’t stick to the pan. It also turns the leaves a differnt color, that’s why some look darker but trust me, it doesn’t effect the taste at all.

  My mom called and asked if I could help my dad pick peas, so I went down to help. They let me keep what I picked so here I am podding peas. It was one of the worst jobs to do as a kid.
My mom would plant so many peas we would be podding 5 gallon buckets full of peas during our summer break. It’s still not my favorite thing to do but I love the taste of raw peas so I don’t mind as much, I can snack while I work.

 As I was leaving my parents house I noticed their dill is huge, I decided to pick some and hang it to dry. There is a lot more so I plan on going back and getting more to dry. I love the taste of dill, my mom used to make the best homemade dill pickles, it make my mouth water just thinking about them.

All in all it’s been a very productive day. Not to mention I need to go out and pick more mulberries, I don’t have a picture of them but they will have a post of their own because there is more I want to show you about them. 
What were some of the worst jobs from the garden you can remember as a kid?