"Miss Basil"

So with nothing to do with the last month or more I decided to go back to gardening. I used to help my grandfather garden when I was a little girl and then of course I did a lot of it growing up at the house in Clinton. Since the Pops wasn't around too much, I was pretty much in charge of the the landscaping and helping my mom with her vegetable garden.
At the Regency, the soil isn't very good and well its just not worth investing a lot of money in renewing it so I dealt with what I had.
A daily ritual in the scorching July-August heat was to water the plants for an hour every night.
The roses finally came into full bloom about 10 days ago as the weather started cooling down post-Irene.
The basil photo is after its 3rd harvest. I used all of it for pesto and just froze it. I think the last harvest I will try to dry it.
And the ardvi/taro/patra took the most energy out of me. Pre-Irene and all the rain, it took me a total of 6 hours to make moats around all of the plants. They need A LOT of water--pretty much grow best in South Asia in swampy areas. They took so much time because the soil really really sucks and is more like clay and very tough to deal with. I think that is also why the leaves didn't grow to a larger size and stayed fairly small compared to how large they used to be in Clinton. Irene in a way was good because it provided constant watering for a few days, but with the pressure of the water, the moats/walls around the plants washed down and now the water doesn't hold anymore. =(
Regardless, I had a great time with the water and keeping up with the few plants I had to maintain this summer. It was therapy in a way. Today I just went to ShopRite of their 3 for $10 deal and bought 30 Mums plants. I planted 15 at the Red Mill Inn and will finish planting the remaining 15 at the Regency today. Not really a fan of the Mums--but the Pops loves them for some reason so whatever. I'm also planning on buying the large bags of daffodil and tulip bulbs from Home Depot that I saw today and planting them so they bloom in the Spring.