So the harvest finally started rolling in this week. I've picked at least a dozen cucumbers, one tomato, and this giant pile of herbs!

Here we are looking at rosemary and sage on the onion bags, and a three-gallon bucket of basil, catnip, oregano and lemon mint.

Now comes the fun part of what to do with all of it. The sage and rosemary get cut up and folded into foil "smoke packets" that I freeze and pull out to use on the grill when we're cooking chicken or pork. Oregano and catnip get dried for future cooking use, and I used the mint to make jelly! 

Apologies for my unsexy backdrop. I am just so in love with the light shining through the jars that I forget what else is around.

And then there was the basil.

Have you ever seen anything so lovely as a spinner of fresh basil? Since it doesn't refrigerate well, I processed this batch with olive oil and just a bit of lemon juice and froze it in ice cube trays. This much only made 9 cubes, but in the winter, when all the fresh is gone, I will have those wonderful cubes to  mix with parmesan and pine nuts and bring back this first big harvest. I can hardly wait!