I had great luck with WS lettuce leaf basil too. You'll love it, it's very yum. It makes kinda seersucker-like leaves and can grow to about knee high. I have several plants and take turns cutting them back for leaves. I did direct sow bush beans for Hubs, he loves them, I grow string beans for him every year.

T

I had terrible germination from Basil and Lettuce this year, both WS and Spring Sown. I think it was the age of the seeds. From the 3-4 year old seeds, only 'Red Sails' Lettuce worked, and none of the Basil did. Newer stuff did great, though, and I bought some Basil starts which have come along nicely.

This winter, I'm going to feed all my old veggie seeds to the birds, and buy all new stuff. The various new seeds I got from Johnny's did great, so I'll just restock everything from them.

Trudi,
The green beans are for my husband too :-) So when he mows the lawn, he can pull off some beans and crunch on them.

I could be wrong, but I think Lettuce Leaf has the flavor I'm looking for as a good "all-purpose" basil (use fresh or in cooking). I made Chicken Primavera with it instead of pesto. That basil tasted great in it.

Donn,
I didn't have good germination on lettuce either. I wound up direct sowing it and covering the rows with Sterlite containers to keep the cats and dogs out of them. One type that did sprout and live was "Buttercrunch". I don't know why they sprouted rather than the others, but they were newer seeds.

Linda

Fresh lettuce seeds are good, fresh seeds of anything are always good and have the best germination. This year I've been delighted with the different lettuce mixes I've tried of Renee's Garden seeds. I WSed an heirloom blend which was a joy, but it finally bolted and was yanked. I just direct sowed something called (I think) Monet's Mesclun...it has an nice assortment of pretty and yum leaves too.

My lettuce and spinach didn't germinate, either. I attributed it to summer (hot and dry) coming first, then spring (cool and wet) coming now. Since we're having spring weather now, I sowed some more yesterday.

My green bean crop this year came from the lasagna ingredients. I have bushes of green beans throughout my beds. I also have potatoes, sweet potatoes, 3 million cantaloupe and one tomato from lasagna ingredients.

One of the things in my newbie pack was 'Merveille de Quatre Saisons' Lettuce, which I had excellent germination on. Between the high winds we had this spring and the leaf miners, I didn't actually get a harvest though.

The basil I'm growing in my kitchen windowsill is doing great. The WS basil germinated fine too, but when I planted it out, it began to gradually wither away. I really have no idea what the problem was - too cool at night, not enough water, bugs???? There are still a couple of tiny ones hanging in there, but I went and bought some transplants for the garden.

I just direct sow basil every year by sprinkling seeds in the tomato beds when we plant the tomatoes in the ground. They grow like crazy and usually end up hogging the whole bed. For that reason I did the basil in 2 pots this year and it's growing like crazy, too. I really should have thinned them long ago.

They're a 10 cent pack of sweet basil from Walgreens.

Karen