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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

Upon returning here to Phoenix a couple weeks ago I found two huge  
rounded weeds growing in the raised herb garden. Resisting the  
impulse to simply rip them out of the ground I began cutting them up  
in chunks, the better to place into the trash container. Putting  
vegetative matter into a trash container is painful for me, but that  
is grist for another post.

Only upon whacking off three-foot limbs of the woody weeds did I  
discover that what I was whacking was basil! At Heartwood we grow a  
couple dozen basil plants each year and take the leaves for basil as  
fast as the plants grow enough to prune appropriately. This continues  
to the first frost. So I have never seen full-size basil. These  
things were humongous, about four feet tall and as wide, looking more  
like tumbleweeds than anything else in my brain's photo library. I  
pruned the wood down to less than a foot,  saving some tiny green  
buds. Don't know if they will make anything or not.

The second delight was finding about a dozen baby basil plants that  
had become seeded from the mature plants. Again this is new  
experience. Basil is very frost intolerant but I might try to set an  
insulated cold frame over a couple plants back home to see if I can  
get baby plants this way.

In the same bed, which has ferrocement walls three feet tall, are two  
rosemary plants. One, a trailing variety, has become a gorgeous drape  
of green plus the tiny blue flowers which are keeping bees happy. The  
other, a culinary variety, had become so shaded from the giant basil  
that it languished, though now expanding nicely with plenty of sun.

Also still growing is a tomato plant that became so shaded it is  
stretched to the south for several feet until it found sun. It has  
some green fruits on it and plenty of blossoms, although night temps  
will preclude germination.

And of course the oregano, with old stems to be pruned away but  
magnificent fresh green stems for pizzas. Oregano is also a perennial  
at home but does not grow so lush after cold weather. There has been  
a frost here, as evidenced by black tips of some tomato leaves.

So the automatic water system paid off.