How to Grow Basil - A practical Guide
The how to grow basil a relative simple piece of content. Basil is a fairly
forgiving herb as long as their is enough light and a comfortable
temperature. Basil is know for its fragrant leaves. You will learn the
special intricacies for your own special location and situation over time.
And this guide will give you a head start
Starting Out
Preparation is the mother of successful projects, we first
need to take care of the containers we will grow our basil plants in, the
soil structure and ensure proper drainage.
To prevent our basil plants from getting wet feet we ensure that there is a
hole in the bottom of the pot, we can use some coarse gravel as lining if
you want. Soil is no problem either, as I said Basil is not very demanding.
It does like fertile ground so a normal potting soil will do.
Before you Sow
Basil likes sun, so if you grow outside make sure to pick a place that receives enough sunlight. Indoors a sunny spot will do. Weed, tile and moist the place the day before sowing.
As with most herbs from a Mediterranean origin Basil hates frost. Therefore don't sow until the change for a frost are gone. of course staring your herbs inside is no problem.
Sowing Basil
Make sure to water your container or herb bed well before sowing but don't drown your containers, make it nice and moist. We sow thinly and cover the seeds with about half an inch of compost.
The seeds will germinate in about seven days, and you can start weeding out the weaklings after the plant has developed about two leave pairs. We only want to keep the strongest plants in our garden or container.
Soil
Basil likes an open structured soil, you can mix
some mulch into the soil, use some composted materials and let nature do its
job. Inside you can add a little fertilizer every month or so. But don't
overdo it, too much fertilizer means tasteless leaves.
Personally I never have had problems with it but lately it has been pointed
out to me that we should water only around the plants and never the stem and
leaves. When your plants grow keep it from flowering. Flowers might look
nice but they take away the flavor and are using energy we like them to use
for their leaves.
So pinch out all appearing flowers.
Harvest
Basil is a pick and come again crop. Just pick some leaves off when you need them. Or is you want to dry or freeze only pick a few each time starting with the top most leaves.
It might sound funny but there is a debate if Basil is an annual or perennial. For myself I want to stay out of the debate since I just don't know. I have always treated the plant as an annual and harvested all at the end of the season. If anyone can shed a light on this issue please let me know.
That's it, now you're set
How to grow basil is a strait forward process. And overtime you will find out the intricacies that apply to the place where you actually grow the plants.
There is always a slight difference, seeing, tending and learning. That is what gardening is about. And what makes it so fulfilling.