Well - when I got up shortly after sunrise, it was 39 so I imagine it was 37 or 38 before that. Did catch but the tail-end of the weather report, windchill in OKC was 36. And we had FROST....all over the ground and decks. Guess Fall is officially here. The only benefit I look forward to with a freeze is maybe all the dad-gummed flies will die! I'm sure glad I got the last of the peppers last nite.

Now, I'm looking forward to a bit warmer afternoon! Going to turn the ground where the jalapeno's were, plant Jay's garlic and mulch, mulch, mulch! We bought a chipper this year so I don't even have to go to town to buy some! It's Game Day in Norman so you won't catch me in town.

Paula

Good morning everybody,

Our low here last night was 44. Our lab must have known the weather was going to be much cooler because he wanted to come in last night (big baby).

Dawn, I had picked all the veggies several days ago, pulled any remaining plants and even started placing some leaves I had bagged up on top of the soil. I was tired of messing with it.

We've recieved almost four inches of rain in the last 48 hrs. and are expecting more of the same today.

Teresa

It was 25 in Denver yesterday morning. I got home late last night. And 27 here now. Guess I brought it with me. Apologize for that Looked at the predictions when I got and they were 30 -33 last night. So picked a few things by the flashlight then covered a few things figuring to pick them this morning. Even with cover it is no use now. So I'm over now. Should of picked more that I did. Hindsight is always the best. Hope everyone else survives this cold spell. The odd part about this year is one grower in Denver who worked where I was said he had managed to save some outside veggies including tomatoes till yesterday morning. He was talking about a late frost and here we are still early. He did lose a few things like me a week ago. Very odd. I think it is a sign of the winter to come. I have seen several say the Rochy Mountains will be warmer and farther east will be colder and wetter. And we are on the western edge of the cold area many are predicting.
This trip to Denver proved again I haven't left anything there. It and Colorade Springs aren't my favorite towns. But may have to go back Monday again. Hoe not. Not a place for a country boy to be driving. Had been nine years since my last company trip there. Hope it is that long again. Jay

It was down to 33° here this morning (near Springfield) and frost was on everything.

This is the pumpkin patch and in the foreground is the strawberry bed:

{{gwi:756630}}

Such a gorgeous frosty pic!!

My thermometer needs new batteries so not sure what it was here but the nearest official reading was 45 this morning. Brrrr.

Diane

Hi All,

Hey, go look at the 11 a.m. radar on the link and note the front line and the words "light snow and freezing drizzle"! In October? Well, if we can't watch our gardens grow, I guess we can watch the weather.

Teresa, You're ahead of me and I guess I need to get busy putting the garden to bed....but (she said with a sob)...it was 85 degrees here Thursday! Oh, well, the weather is a-changing!

Paula, I can't imagine what the traffic would be like on game day! Any word from the big boys out playing at the deer camp? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know hunting is "hard work".

Jay, Normally we don't blame you for the weather, but we might think that this "light snow and freezing drizzle" followed you home from Denver. Was it cold enough there for you?

I guess the cold got the rest of your garden last night? (sigh) Hindsight is always 20-20, but at this time of year, half the time it is 85 or 90 degrees and half the time it is colder, so it is hard to know what to expect, and sometimes (Gasp!) the forecasters are wrong.

I've had a "bad winter" feeling in my bones and have since May or June...not any sort of old lore like the fuzzy wuzzy caterpillars had thicker fuzz....just an odd feeling in my bones that fall would come early and winter would be brutal. I hope I'm wrong.
Glenda, That's a gorgeous photo of a frosty morning, but I hate to see the frost get your plants. (NOT that you need more pumpkins/winter squash.)

Diane, Brrr is right. If we are this cold in October, what will it feel like by December?

I've linked the ever-popular NWS website so y'all can see the freezing rain/drizzle area....at least until they replace that radar image with something else.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Freezing Rain/Drizzle

The closest mesonet station registered 36. It is very pretty here this morning with bright sun. Temps are still a little nippy, but nothing died. The mesonet north of me registered 39 and south of me 36, guess I need to have my min/max thermometer out.

I can usually walk in my garden even after a good rain, but somewhere between "good rain" and 6 inches that conditions changes. LOL If I can find a pair of shoes that doesn't have mud all over them, I am going to harvest a few more things today.

OMG - Dawn!!! This morning as I was puttering around, I kept thinking "where's the sunshine?". I looked out several times and to the north, could see a dark gray bank of clouds...I thought to myself that if I didn't know better, bad weather might be moving in. Guess I should have just checked the NWS! TWC says it's 55 hear @ 1:30 and the wind is out of the north @ 10. Looks likes it's gusting a bit too. The squirrels are going crazy scampering around! Hope you've gotten out to gather what you can and cover the rest!

Jay - I hope to get my garlic in the ground this weekend so maybe that'll bring you some happy thoughts and dreams of next spring? I'm so sorry your garden got bit.

Yep, heard from DH. Said he missed a shot. He also said that up there (around Henrietta - Tiger Mountain Road) they've had so much rain that it's washed all the acorns up to higher places. The deer are numerous and out in many more visable places. He didn't fool me, I know he was just watching Bambi's mommy. He also asked me to go pick up his gout Rx. FAT CHANCE! Not today, Sweetheart!

EEEGADS Glenda! I hadn't even thought about my strawberries!!!! Guess I'd better go get some pine needles on them while I'm out! Thanks for jogging my memory!

Carol - get some of those Wal-mart version of crocks shoes. They're cheap and durable! Plus they slip on and off and since they're plastic, rinse off easily. Not the prettiest things, but who cares! And wear your DH's socks...

Paula

Jay - Sorry about your garden, but it is coming quickly to all of us. I don't have as much left to lose as you did tho.

What's wrong with Denver? I loved Denver when I lived there but that was a lot of years ago and the polution was beginning to get bad even then. Now, Colorado Springs is another story.......and is my LEAST favorite place that I have ever lived.

I don't have my garlic in the ground yet, but I'm glad I waited because I would be afraid it would rot. It will be going in as soon as the ground dries a little.

gldno1 - I am not surprised about your weather. I was in your area last weekend and it was much cooler than it was here at home. I had on a fleece jacket and didn't take it off all day.

Paula - I do have those for the garden and I will probably just slip on the muddy ones from last night instead of getting another pair muddy. Then I'll turn the hose on them. I had on good shoes the first time tho, and got them muddy also.

Dawn - Just looking at the forecast and if we could make it through Sunday night/Monday morning then we have another week or so of decent weather. LOL Isn't that the way it always is. I think I will harvest everything today and just stop trying to second guess the first freeze. I will leave the beans in place and if they make it through then I will still be able to harvest a few, but if not, nothing is lost.

OK, y'all, I want to know which one of you took my sunny, gorgeous day with a high of 66, which is what the forecast said this morning, and gave me an overcast day and a high, so far, of 51 degrees. Somebody needs to 'fess up and give me back the weather that the KXII forecasters told us was going to be a "perfect, sunny, gorgeous weekend". LOL

Paula, So, it is as dreary and chilly there as it is here? You are slightly warmer than we are but we're down low in the river valley. I don't understand when the fun part of the hunting season starts. Is it the cold and the wind and the mud that they are enjoying so much? I'd rather be inside (and I am).

Carol, I don't think we can trust our forecast. Our high so far (and it is 3:40 p.m. as I write this) is 15 degrees lower than they forecast, so if our overnight low drops 15 degrees lower than they said, my garden will be dead and gone. And, no, I'm not going to cover up anything. If it freezes, it freezes. I'm just not going to take any heroic measures to save it this year.

I did harvest all I reasonably could...and more than I wanted to. I brought in a small amount of okra, a good-sized mess of beans, 13 big ripe tomatoes, 271 bite-sized tomatoes, 218 jalapeno peppers (and I left at least that many smallish ones on the plants), 16 habaneros to go with the 2 qts. already in the house, 18 large sweet bell peppers and 107 mini-bells, and three lonely pickling cukes who were too small to pick earlier in the week when I made pickles, and I left on the vine all their tiny brothers and sisters who may freeze and die tonight.

I am tired and am not even in the mood to deal with all this produce, even if it is the last bit we get this year. So, it is all piled up in bowls on the kitchen counters, and I'll just deal with it tomorrow.

I know we have had some cold nights in October in plenty of years, but I don't know that it has been this cold this early in a long time.

When I came in from the garden, the house was 66 degrees so we turned on the heater....it is just too early for that!

I noticed on the 3 p.m. radar that the snow is gone and the freezing drizzle has dropped down into the Texas panhandle.

Dawn

Toto - I don't think Jay's in Kansas anymore.

I think he decided to head for Dallas and that cold, drizzly air is following him.....

Poor Jay. He is such a good, decent guy and we are blaming him for the weather.

Jay--it is not your fault that the cold weather followed you here from Colorado. I am sure it is just a coincidence. However, the next time you travel, could you go to Hawaii instead and bring us back some of that weather?

Paula, I am very concerned our low will go lower than they are predicting here, since the daytime high was 15 degrees lower than forecast.

I picked all the veggies I could, but didn't bother with green tomatoes or immature peppers, and I put all my ornamental plants that are in containers up on the covered patio to keep them safe. I'm not ready for this cold weather.

Dawn

Oh Jay! I'm not blaming you, really!!! I just couldn't resist the pun....

But ya know...it's October and Halloween is approaching so I think some bad weather goblin figured out you knew the good life and followed you in search of it and....I'm diggin' myself in deeper, aren't I? Lol

Hawaii? Hawaii's good!

Had snow and drizzle in Denver Thursday and then sun and 50's yesterday. But 25 and a sheet of ice on things yesterday morning. Weather wasn't near as bad as the traffic. And guess that wasn't bad for Denver. Makes a country boy nervous though. LOL. I'm blaming myself for bringing it home. They said it would be arriving in a few hours when I was leaving so must of sucked it along behind me in my haste to leave there. Jay

Jay,

Don't blame yourself. LOL

It sounds like y'all got out of Denver just in the nick of time and it isn't your fault the wicked weather tagged along and followed you home.

Hey, at least the moisture you've needed all year is starting to fall.....too bad it is too late to help this year's garden.

Dawn

Today is an exact reverse of yesterday....42 degrees at the Mesonet station and 39 degrees at our house. My garden lives.

Dawn

We are 27 now. You don't go to far east till you get out of the freezing temps. Not sure where it is going as doesn't seem to be moving much yet. But sure a cold pocket of air they didn't predict. They missed it bad here. We take and appreciate all moisture. But really haven't received much. Just enough to make it slick to walk. Had a half and ince while I was gone. And I imagine maybe a tenth or two yesterday. Hopefully it will warm up and rain. Glad everyone else seemed to miss it. If I head back to Denver this week will try to suck it back to the north. Jay

Jay,

It is too cold there! My feet freeze when the temps drop into the lower 40s and I like to stay inside unless I'm wearing really warm boots and socks.

That cold air pocket seems like it has settled over y'all like a dome the last couple of days. Too bad you can't save this moisture for next summer.

If you go back to Denver, drag all this cold back behind you and leave it there, OK?

Then, if they have sunlight, hitch it up behind your vehicle and bring it to us.

It is drizzly here...probably not enough to make you run windshield wipers and maybe not enough to add up to much in the rain gauge, but enough to keep all the grass and foliage dripping wet. I would worry that the constant moisture would cause issues with the tomato foliage, but think it finally is cold enough here that we don't have to worry much about that.....if bacterial speck or spot popped up now, it likely wouldn't do much harm before the eventual freeze takes out the plants anyway.

Our average first freeze here is mid-November, although I usually have to cover up plants once or twice in October to get them through an unexpectedly cold night. I'm betting we have an earlier-than-average first freeze this year.

Dawn

We had fried green tomatoes, okra and summer squash with our lunch today. We enjoy the fried green tomatoes and at least the tomato doesn't go to waste. We still haven't had a freeze so maybe I will get a few more green beans. I have pretty much stripped the tomatoes and peppers.

We got off easy in Bowlegs; not colder than 39 - 40 all weekend. I still spent the better half of a day moving tender plants like my peppers into the conservatory, but left out stuff like sweet potato vine, potted tomatoes and geraniums. According to weather underground, it's supposed to warm back up and stay that way at least a week, so today everything is going right back outside. Dawn, our frost/freeze date is more in line with yours, so we should have at least a couple more weeks of fall flush in the garden. Most of my roses have buds, and I'm looking forward to seeing them bloom again.

Has finally hit 32 today and ice is falling off the trees, vehicles, ect. I was bleseed and very fortunate on my return and yesterday. Also partly due to my being frugal. I had never started any heaters yet this year. I got home late Friday night and thought about it and decided I was so tired I would just use an electric heater and light thegas heaters on Saturday. Got up yesterday and decided to go shopping so put it off till I returned. Upon opening the door last night I could smell gas. It may be more noticeable to me being I work for a natural gas company. Did some looking and couldn't find anything. So decided best to turn the gas off outside and wait till morning. I called a coworker on shift and asked him to drop off a gas monitor for me to use. Found the leak this morning and got it unhooked and plugged and the heaters lit. I checked everything in the house and under the house before lighting. I have an old wall furnace heater I don't use anymore. Had turned it off several years ago. For some reason in cold temperatures it has started leaking. It is unhooked and I will remove it soon. Very fortunate I hadn't lit the heaters before I left for Denver. Cold weather is when many problems and malfunctions show up. Could of had roasted green tomatoes. Jay

Carol, The meal sounds delicious. I stripped my tomato plants of all the ripening ones, but not the green ones. I stripped the pepper plants of all the full-sized ones, but left lots of smaller ones. With any luck, the green tomatoes will ripen and the little peppers will grow. Tonight we're having spaghetti and the sauce is homemade from our tomatoes, peppers and onions.

Littledog, I hope wunderground was right....and their forecast for us matches yours pretty closely, and our local weather forecast agrees with wunderground too. I hope the rosebuds get a chance to bloom before it turns cold again. I'm still waiting for the sunlight to put in an appearance though.

Jay, You certainly were fortunate that the gas leaked while you were there to smell it and figure out the problem. Imagine what could have happened while you were in Denver.

Our fire department usually has a busy week during the first week of really cold weather when people suddenly start using their heaters again. It isn't always actual fires....sometimes it is smoke from dusty air ducts, or smoke detectors going off because of dusty air ducts or whatever. Sometimes it is actual fires or maybe an elderly person who has a fireplace and is forgetful and leaves the fireplace damper closed--filling the house with smoke. If the weather is really cold, sometimes it is small fires started by heat lamps in dog houses that ignite bedding or whatever. The problems are always worse if there's a huge temperature plunge early in the season and everyone's heaters are used for the very first time that season all on the same day or night.

I can't believe we've got the heater turned on already, although it has only come on a couple of times since we turned it on yesterday.

Can we start counting the days until spring now? I'm not a winter person.

Dawn

I'm with you Dawn!

One....two....three...don't we have to count until like 155?

Jay - so very, very glad you got that gas problem figured out before it was a really bad deal! I'm so scared of gas. I was a single mother for so many years and when I bought my own home...friends thought I was crazy because I purposely chose a total electric home. I had a fireplace so if we lost power...we could still be warm. But all that business of leaks and lighting "pilots" just unnerved me to no end! I so admire your knowledge of this stuff on top of all the gardening!!! I would have been totally paniced in your shoes!

Looks like we have a few days of good weather coming our way! Yea for my garlic!!!

I think he decided to head for Dallas and that cold, drizzly air is following him.....
Paula - I would like to head SE but not Dallas for sure. OKC is one of the few cities I enjoy visiting. Might head to Marietta. Dawn better beware. Warmer weather and lions to play with. How much better could it be? Jay

Paula, I think the NWS is forecasting a sunny day for us on Sunday....I guess I'll start counting the days until that day arrives...just for practice before we start counting all those days until spring.

We have an all-electric house too, and people thought we were crazy, too, but....we lived in a 40-year old neighborhood in Ft. Worth where everyone had natural gas and, being an old neighborhood with shifting black clay soils, etc., there were constant leaks and such in our neighborhood, and more than a few fires (which might have been as related to the age of the homes/heating systems as the natural gas). A gentleman I knew in Fort Worth died when a gas leak under his home caused his home to explode. So, from the day we started planning this house, I wanted 'no gas' and it is all electric, and that is not a decision we have ever regretted.

Jay, C'mon down. I haven't seen or heard any big kitties in a while, but we had a visit from a late hummer (it had better get busy migrating) this morning, and we have lots of gray skies, mist, drizzle and cool weather to share. We did see a big flock of pelicans migrating this morning, and a flock of great blue herons this afternoon.

I think we all need to drive down to a sunny spot along the Gulf Coast!

We have a lot of rain in our forecast for tonight and tomorrow. Do y'all? (Because, if we're having rain and y'all are having sunshine, I'm going to abandon our place and come visit you. LOL)

Dawn

We were expecting a frost but we didn't get it. I had stripped everything, but not pulled anything up except for a couple of tomato plants that had no flowers on them and were in places where they were in the way.

I've been busy processing little green tomatoes into puree for the freezer. I made a couple of different kinds of green tomato cake that were both good, and an "apple cobbler" calling for mixing the sliced tomatoes with sugar, cinnamon and cider vinegar that might be appreciated by someone who likes the flavor of tomato preserves. Since I'm the only one in my house that does, and I'm watching my sugar consumption, I ended up having to toss that one. The tomatoes that were any size at all I just set out on the counter and several of them have turned red already. I had to process a couple of immature WBPP's because they had started oozing at the stem and the stem was looking moldy, but I'm still holding 4 of the bigger ones, that still look OK, to work on later on. I tried to hold that last Moon and Stars a few days but I noticed it was starting to deteriorate at the stem end. When I cut into it, it was yellow inside and none of the seed were worth keeping.

At this point we have still not had a freeze and the garden is still looking fine, although my Jerusalem artichokes fell over in the mud. I'll go out today and see if there's anything to pick now, since it's been several days. Maybe there are some more beans.

I wear those Crocs, too. I love them! I bought some off-road Crocs that have a thicker sole and I wear them in the garden. The others are too thin on the bottom and if I have to step in water, it gets into my shoe through all those holes. I always wear sox with my Crocs, but there's nothing worse than WET sox and Crocs, Sam-I-Am! We have had rain every day for I don't know how long, so there are puddles everywhere.

Hi Ilene,

I'm kind of amazed y'all didn't have a frost because it looked pretty cold up there on the weather map.

The green tomatoes I left on the vines are just sitting there and sitting there and sitting there. I don't think they are going to change colors and ripen until the sun shines. Supposedly we will have sunshine here on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. I'll believe it when I actually see it since that also was our forecast last weekend and we had no sunshine and lots of cold instead.

I think in the last two weeks, we've had a couple of times where the sun came out for 3 or 4 minutes, and last Thursday we had a hour or so of sun early in the day. It got our hopes up for a sunny day, but then that tiny bit of sun vanished.

I saw an article on the website of either the Fort Worth or Dallas newspaper that said as of yesterday they were on their 11th straight day of clouds/no sunlight, so even that far south they are having about the same weather as most of us. The good news is that most of Texas has had a lot of rain and their drought conditions are receding. When the new Drought Monitor map is released tomorrow, we'll see a lot of changes.....I know that, not because I'm psychic, but because I have already looked at their KBDI map this week on another website and it shows great changes.

Don't those Crocs have holes in them? I can't wear anything like that, including any sandals or open-toed or open-heeled shoes, that let the scorpions or fire ants have access to my skin or they'll take advantage of it. I learned that the hard way and have tried pretty hard not to slip up......if there is one fire ant in the yard and I go outside the house in sandals (I do wear them indoors), that one fire ant will find me the instance I step off the porch and onto the ground. We do have fire ant mounds popping up in a few places, and I still have some organic fire ant killer, so if we get a couple of dry days, I'll treat those mounds.

Our puddles even have puddles, Ilene. The dog yard is a muddy mess but we've spread a couple of bales of straw there and that is helping. I think we need to get a couple more bales of straw and put out even more.

When I walk in the garden, it squishes.

I suspect this long, cloudy spell is a taste of the kind of fall/winter weather we're going to have this year. Usually October is one of my favorite months with its bright blue, clear, sunny skies and moderate temperatures. This year is a whole different story though.

Dawn

We haven't been without sunshine as long as you have but we have been pretty dreary this week. It hasn't slowed down the beans though. I prepared a batch again last night and have them in a green bag in the refrigerator. I thought I might as well wait until I had more before I blanch and pack.

I just did two bags of "spicy" type peppers this morning and got them in the freezer. In fact, my hands are stinging a little at the moment. Peppers make me burn and latex makes me itch, so I just worked fast. LOL Other than the bowl of bells in the kitchen and some very tiny ones left on the vine, I think peppers are done for the year.

I miss the sunshine, but I'm still getting beans too. I still think I'd get more, and more quickly, if the sun would shine for a couple of days.

Tim saw a brief glimpse of sunshine on his way to work in Dallas today, so that gives me hope.

I have to wear gloves when handling any hot peppers or I am absolutely miserable because I'm very sensitive to capsaicin (much more so than anyone else in the family). I don't use latex ones very much any more, but there are other medical gloves that we buy that are not latex and I wear them. We usually buy nitrile, and I'll buy a couple of boxes every winter when ordering other supplies for the fire dept. There's also non-latex gloves available now that are made of PVC but basically look like latex. Because so many people have developed allergies to latex over the last 2 decades or so, there are many other medical-type gloves now available.

When I do something that causes me to handle hot peppers without gloves, I quickly rub some vegetable oil on my hands to saturate the skin and hopefully mix with the pepper oil that contains capsaicin and then wash off the oil and wash my hands a couple more times with cold water and soap. (Hot water makes the capsaicin burn more if the oil hasn't removed it all.) I also have found rubbing pure aloe vera into my burning hands often helps as well. All of the above generally only work if I do them within a very few minutes of touching a hot pepper.

I wish my peppers were done. I still have two big bowls on the counter, a big ziplock bag in the fridge, and plants just covered in more. I am VERY unmotivated to do anything with them as we already have so many frozen, dried, canned, etc. etc. etc. I am going to go into the kitchen and deal with them in a few minutes though, because my thrifty nature simply won't allow me to waste them.

At first, they said sunshine for Saturday, then they said for Fri-Sat-Sun. Now they're saying Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon. I am going to be SO disappointed if they are wrong again. On a less happy note, they're now saying 39 degrees for one weekend night....it originally was 45, then 42, and now 39. If that happens, my garden will be in danger.

They are saying 34 for us for Saturday night so I think Saturday will be my last picking day for anything. I didn't do anything with my basil and I have quite a bit. What do you do with yours?

I either air dry it or freeze it, or both.

34 sounds impossibly bad. I think it might really be "the end" for your garden this year.

EXCEPT, if you have cloudy skies, they might kept the temp up a few degrees, or if you have wind, it could keep any frost that forms from settling on the plants. Which one do you want us to pray for? Wind? Clouds? You choose. LOL

With basil, I've tried hanging it to dry it and I've tried freezing it, and haven't been happy with the results. The leaves are so large that they clump together and they lose a lot of their color when it takes longer to dry. I guess, actually, I'm happy enough with the freezing part, but I tend to lose things in the freezer and I can never find that bag when I want it! They tend to glob together in the bag so I'd freeze them on a cookie tray first and then put them in the bag after they're frozen. Basil leaves seem to have a lot more moisture in them than most herbs. If you smush the leaves while they're still frozen, you can get them into small enough pieces to use. Myself, I don't like big basil leaves floating around in things, and when a whole leaf thaws, it gets kind of tough. I guess you could take it out of the dish after cooking, like bay leaf, or you could cut it in small pieces with scissors. Frozen basil tends to impart some of its flavor into the freezer, and I don't always mind that so much, as I love the smell of basil. But I have to think it's losing its potency just as bad in the freezer as some people say it does when you dry it. This year I've tried a couple of other ways. I picked all the leaves off the stem and put them on a towel on my dining room table, where the ceiling fan runs. They're still drying and seem to be progressing all right. I like dried herbs because they're more compact and easier to store and because, stored in jars with my other herbs, they are easier for me to find than what I have tucked away in the freezer. I think basil might be a good candidate for the food dehydrator, but I'd want to have practically no heat involved. During the summer this year, I whirred some fresh leaves around in my blender with some olive oil, and froze them in ice-cube trays. Those closer to Texas than I am probably have easier access to pine nuts than I do, which is a basic ingredient for pesto. I'm told, however, that walnuts are a good substitute for pine nuts. You could always make up a batch of pesto and freeze that. I think it would freeze well.

Often, I'll chop up the fresh herbs in my little herb chopper before I dry them or freeze them. That way, they're already about the size I want them to be when adding them to whatever I'm cooking. I also like to freeze herbs in the snack-sized ziplock bags in pre-meastured quantities that correspond to the amounts I use in recipes I make often. Then I put a lot of the little ziplocks in one big gallon-sized ziplock to keep them all together in the freezer.

Sometimes I air-dry whole branches of basil by hanging them upside down in the laundry room inside a brown paper bag (it keeps dust off). Other times, I'll dry them in my convection oven using the 'Dehydrate' feature. Or, I'll add the chopped ones to ice cube trays and freeze them, and then store them in ziplock bags. This is an easy way to add herbs to sauces, soups or stews....just pop the ice cube out of the bag and drop it into the pot of sauce.

I've linked the herb mill below. It is a really handy little gadget that we use a lot to chop up leafy herbs like cilantro, basil, parsely, etc. I originally bought it for Tim because he always puts a lot of cilantro in his fresh salsa and pico de gallo and he doesn't have the patience to chop it up into small pieces. I've found we use it for all kinds of leafy herbs because it reliably gives you such small pieces and it is very quick. It pops apart very easily for cleaning. I'll warn y'all ahead of time that the herb chopper is on the website of a seed company that imports Franchi-Simenti seeds from Italy and you're likely to have too much fun reading about all those seeds. Also, it is not my fault if you fall in love with the seeds on this site and have to order a bunch of them. Be careful, though, some of them (though absolutely not all) are exactly the same varieties of seeds we buy here, and they cost less here. Others, though, I've only found from this company and the ones I've purchased have done well for me here.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Seeds of Italy's Herb Chopper

Ilene, I tried the walnut substitution for pine nuts once and found that it just wasn't the same. Something about the slight turpentiny flavor of the pine nuts says pesto to me. Costco sells them in pound bags and my son keeps me supplied as he works for them. I don't know if Sam's sells them or not as it has been years since I shopped there. I make pesto and freeze it in midsummer.