How can you handle Thai basil's early flowering?

[turbo]

I'm dealing with Hell"s Kitchen this summer. The heat-wave and drought have stalled so many of my plants that things are just not developing in time to be used together. I'm getting cukes, but very slowly, and the dill is lagging badly, so I can only make pickles in very tiny batches (still no dill pickles yet), and I haven't had a single ripe tomato from the garden. Still, no usable chili peppers, either. Whaaaa.

 

[Math Is Hard]

I'm dealing with Hell"s Kitchen this summer. The heat-wave and drought have stalled so many of my plants that things are just not developing in time to be used together. I'm getting cukes, but very slowly, and the dill is lagging badly, so I can only make pickles in very tiny batches (still no dill pickles yet), and I haven't had a single ripe tomato from the garden. Still, no usable chili peppers, either. Whaaaa.

Hell's garden??

 

[turbo]

Hell's garden??

Yep! I'm trying to water judiciously and urge things along, but the unprecedented heat and drought are fighting me. My wife bought a small pack of fresh dill yesterday, and we have enough cukes to make maybe 3-4 quarts of pickles, but this is ridiculous. I should already have 10-15 quarts in the pantry. My father has latched onto my home-made dill pickles as his "favorite" and they have turned out to be a critical component in my roast-beef subs this summer. It has been so hot, humid and nasty that I have been subsisting on sandwiches, and I'm running through last year's pickles faster than I can produce new ones.

 

[Math Is Hard]

Have you made anymore basil lemonade? I'm still waiting on that recipe!

 

[turbo]

My post got eaten up by a 504 error! Anyway, after 2 iterations of the Thai basil/lemonade experiments we still haven't had a decent result. I think we have to back up and boil a tea out of the Thai basil to combine with the lemonade. That basil has a nice anise-like flavor, but it's not coming out well in cold infusions. I'll let you know if we can come up with something good.

 

[turbo]

BTW, do you have Thai basil available locally? Ours is already starting to flower, and I'm not sure how to deal with that. I'd like to pinch off the flowering heads, though through experience I have found that the most flavorful part of the dill plant is the flowering heads. Much richer, nicer flavor than the weed or the seeds.