Basil "success"?

Tonight's temperature forecasts call for frost tonight, so the basil needs its last trimming of the year. Stripping the leaves down in preparation for one last pesto-dipping frenzy, I spied this shy basil plant among the towering trees of basil:


This is the one basil plant left over from last year. I nurtured it over the winter, seeing if it would survive the winter and burst into leafy profusion next summer. It survived the winter, barely, with a few tiny bright green leaves showing promise as I replanted it outside this spring. It never forgave me. I hardly plucked a leaf all summer, waiting for the bursting leafy bouquet that never came. I suppose sometimes you need to embrace the changing of the seasons; the death and rebirth of all life in the natural world. It survived these two years, it's true, but the resources of time, effort, and space would have been better used on cool season crops.

So long, sweet basil.