Hello my lovelies! I hope y’all had a wonderful week last week while we were off galavanting about the Southeast! Since we chatted last we’ve had a wonderful engagement party hosted by my sweet, sweet parents, found my wedding dress (!), visited both Savannah and Charleston, and we’ve eaten some really great food in the process! As soon as I get through the massive amounts of pictures I have from Ireland, the party, and our lowcountry trip, I’ll have lots of pretty things for y’all!

Today though, let’s talk about something a bit more practical. While we were gone, our basil got out of control! We have a row of basil in the same container as out tomatoes because we heard they get along just swell. It’s clear they are besties even if our poor tomatoes did get a case of early blight. Anyway, when we got back we also had a whole bundle of basil from our CSA so clearly it was pesto time!

When we first started growing basil a few years ago, every time I pruned it for pesto I ended up killing it. Then, my strategy was to take a few leaves from each stem leaving enough for the plant to keep growing. Unfortunately I was having to take a lot, so that didn’t always work out. Eventually a friend showed me how to prune them correctly so that they could continue making new stems and my mind was blown. Talk about a light bulb moment!

So, dear friends, here’s the tip.

Cut the stem just above a set of opposite leaves.

So simple! Another stem will pop up from the little nook there and make lots of new leaves.

We used our pesto (and some home-grown tomatoes from my grandmother’s garden) on a Roasted Tomato and Goat Cheese Grilled Pizza from our summer recipe collection for The Seasonal Supper. It tasted exactly like summer should!

What about you, friends? Do you have any gardening tips for this novice? What are you growing this year?