How To Save The Basil In Your Garden

 If you are like the rest of us gardeners, you have a lot of basil growing that just won't quit.

I love basil, it is a delicate herb and while dried basil has a nice flavor,

the flavor vanishes relatively quickly.

Freezing basil locks the flavors in more clearly and for a longer period of time.

Here's the first dilemma, should you wash it first or use it straight from the garden.

The jury is out on this one, many people don't wash it first because it takes a long time to dry.

My plan was to "not wash" it first but as I started to pick the leaves off the stems, 

I noticed there were small, clear colored spiders crawling around in the bowl and on the leaves.

Change of plans, I decided to wash it...lay it out and wait for it to dry.

Once it is washed and dried, you have 2 options, freeze the basil leaves whole,

or chop them up and place them in a silicone tray with olive oil...

I went for the latter. 

Here is the basil I harvested.

You can see a few of the stems had already gone to seed - flowers had formed -

I picked 2 cookies sheets of leaves...

and this little bit that I decided I was going to freeze these leaves whole.

After washing and drying, I chopped the basil and placed it into this silicone tray and added olive oil.

This silicone tray is designed just for this.

The leaves should be pressed into the olive oil, so that none are exposed, I forgot to do that.

I also froze the remaining leaves in a freezer bag, whole, 

to see how they would stand up in the freezer.

I froze them first in a single layer and then transferred them to a freezer bag.

Doing this first prevents the leaves from sticking together, 

so you can grab a single leaf when you need it.

I have never done this, I will keep you posted on how it works out.

Here it is after one day in the freezer,

I think I should add a little more olive oil to be sure the leaves are covered.

Now I can pop out a cube when I need one for making sauce, soup or any other recipe that calls for basil.

I froze the whole leaves...

Making pesto is another great way to prepare basil and freeze it.

Whatever you do, get it all picked, prepared and preserved so you have fresh basil all winter long.