Is it me, or does everyone get garden envy? Hello everyone, my name is BethAnn and I suffer from Garden Envy.  While I am truly happy for the bounty that many are bringing in now, I have to admit that my patience is wearing thin with my garden.  While I am thankful for the bounty I  have gotten (cucumbers and squash, not to mention the corn that we were able to get this year before the deer devoured it all), I really want my tomatoes to produce the big, bright, red, bulbous  fruit I am coveting.

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I find my self eyeing the fruits of others’ gardens on the street, in the markets, and even online. I feel a little like I am stalking the tomatoes of the region, and perhaps need help. I wonder if there is a support group for gardeners like me who suffer from garden envy? I did find an online forum of tomato lovers who, like me, were self admitted “tomato-holics”.  I take comfort in knowing that I am not alone in this. But, if I am honest, it is not just tomatoes. I love basil… so much so that I have more plants than I can manage.

BethAnn's Basil

The 38 inch tall Basil plant in the greenhouse

I have had to stop collecting seeds since I have enough to populate almost all of Huntington with basil.  I have learned that a handy way to save my basil was to make up pesto and freeze it in cupcake tins then place each “pesto-cake” in a plastic bag and freeze them. I wrap them individually then keep them all in a gallon zip lock. Nothing like Pesto in the winter to brighten up the day.  🙂  Just unwrap it and pop it in a pan of cooked, drained, hot pasta and give it a stir. Add your Parmesan Cheese and your set!

So perhaps, I am a garden-holic not just a tomato-holic. Maybe I love the special feeling of planting seeds in the earth, nurturing them as they grow, in order to get my greedy little, soil-caked hands on the fruits of my labor. While I would like to tell you that I garden for noble principles; the truth is I love to eat what I grow. Nothing pleases me more than setting a table with food that our family was produced. We know where it was grown, how it was grown, and we are the farmer. It travels about 70 feet from garden to table and loses nothing along the way.