Basil

Hello chums.

This year for the first time I thought I'd try some Basil from seed. Anyway, what I have is 'regular'(?) Basil, the sort one normally sees for sale at the supermarket. What I'd like to know is, is this a 'cut & come again' thingy? Or, should I sow in succession?

Cheers...Freddy.

 

I sow in succession but I often add more seeds to an existing pot or I'd just have too many pots!

 

1. Grow several plants.
2. Harvest from them in a rotation. Using up one plant at a time from the top to near the bottom, but stop before remove the bottom few leaves. Then move onto the next plant in the rotation.

By the time you've gone all the way round and back to the first plant, the first plant will have grown loads of new growth ready for harvesting again.

That way you prevent the plant from getting ready to flower, which is good, because once it goes into flowering mode the leaves aren't worth bothering with.

 

Thanks folks, that pretty much answers my question

 

I grown in pots in succession. Big packets of Franchi basil seeds are cheap, also worth looking around online. They go into composting after they've been chopped in the kitchen. I even take a pot of the stuff on holiday with me.

For some reason I find basil the worst offender for damping off so always use some copper on them

 

very commendable to grow them from seeds. I usually buy the plant or plants from a wonderful local green house at $2.00 each certainly worth it.

 

I usually buy nearly dead, force grown ones from the supermarket for a few pence, then nurse them back to health when I get them home

 

I'm the complete opposite, I buy lovely fresh ones at the supermarket and then proceed to kill them within a couple of days. I've no idea what I do wrong. I'm hoping to have more luck with the ones in my garden this year.

 

many people say you have to repot the supermarket basil, and nurse it for a few days before planting out

I've tried just planting them outdoors on the day I bought them .... no success

I've had luck with parsley .... planted outdoors on the same day they were bought

we consume loads of basil .... may try seeds, however 80 pence gets you a bag of fresh leaves from Tesco

 

The trick is quite simple, but fiddly.

First, thoroughly water the plant you got from the supermarket. Do it as soon as you get it home.

That same evening, harvest most of the top growth for use that day. You should end up with each stalk having only the bottom 2 or 3 levels of leaves still on.

Next day, at your leisure, prepare some pots of compost. Then here comes the fiddly bit. Carefully remove the basil plant from its pot. It will actually not be a single plant, but rather 5 or 6 crammed into a single pot. Very carefully, and slowly, break the plant up. Don't worry about separating each individual plant. Even if you can tease it into 2 instead of one mass then that is good. The goal is to separate them so that they aren't fighting each other, but at the same time don't rip their roots off too much.

Pot up each of the clumps that you've extracted. Water thoroughly. I actually waterlog the compost over night, and then let it drain naturally from the next day. Keep the plants indoors, near a window but out of direct sun (a north facing window is best). They need light but they don't want to bake, especially considering they'll have suffered a lot of damage from the separation and transplant. They'll need at least a week to mend. In that time, keep them well watered.

You'll know when they're mended, because they'll suddenly start growing quite rapidly. Then you just treat them as normal healthy plants

 

Thanks for that clueless, I will give it a try. Should I do a similar thing to my shop bought rosemary as there are three plants per pot in that?

 

Back in Italy we had a bush of egyptian basil , that plant never dies but form a woody bush, I`ve never seen any around .

 

Mine is from this treasure of a garden nursery. They have all sorts of herbs in pots. Not to mention the most wonderful annuals for hanging pots etc.

 

NO !! Rosemary is different - it is a long lived perenniel. Plant the whole pot out in May, in a sunny well drained spot in the garden. It will grow into a large shrub.

a-a

 

I've never tried it with Rosemary. But then I'd never tried it with Basil until the first time I tried it

I would guess that the same principle applies.

EDIT: Alex posted same time as me it seems. I think I'd go along with Alex's suggestion. Rosemary is quite different to Basil in lots of ways.