Photo: Netha Hussain, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Unchanged apart from web resizing.
Basil (Ocimum basilicum) is a warm-weather annual. Sweet or Genovese basil is an especially easy first choice for tomato dishes, pasta, and pizza.
Give it a good start
- Wait until frost danger has passed and nights are warm before planting outside. Basil sulks in cold soil and cold air.
- Choose full sun and soil or potting mix that drains well. Keep the root area evenly moist, but not waterlogged, and aim water at the soil instead of the leaves.
- Follow the seed packet or plant label for final spacing. Thin crowded seedlings instead of trying to keep a whole grocery-store clump in one small pot; moving air and room for roots help plants stay sturdy.
- A container needs a drainage hole. Check it more often than a garden bed because pots dry quickly in hot weather.
The cut that makes more basil
Once the plant is established and has several pairs of leaves, look down a stem for a pair of leaves growing opposite one another. Use clean scissors or pinch the stem just above that pair, leaving the pair on the plant. Tiny shoots in the two leaf joints can then become two new branches.
Harvest a short leafy top this way instead of repeatedly plucking the biggest single leaves from the bottom. Never take more than about half the plant at once, and give a recently cut plant time to make new growth. Regular tip-cutting makes basil rounder and bushier.
Flower buds look like a tight little cluster at a stem tip. If you want lots of tender leaves, pinch or snip that tip as soon as buds appear, cutting just above the next healthy leaf pair. Check every few days in warm weather. You can let one branch bloom for bees, but a flowering stem puts less energy into new leaves.
Five-minute kitchen fun
- Tuck a few washed, dry leaves under the cheese on a frozen pizza before baking. For the brightest flavour, tear a few more over the pizza after it comes out.
- Add torn basil to a tomato sandwich, scrambled eggs, canned tomato soup, or buttered noodles.
- Freeze chopped basil with a little water in an ice-cube tray, then drop a cube into tomato sauce later.
- Know someone who sometimes cooks Italian food? Cut several leafy stems, rinse them under cool running water, and dry them very well with a clean paper towel. Wrap them loosely in a fresh paper towel, slip them into a clean zipper bag, and say, “Use these soon!” Refrigeration can darken basil, so another good short-term gift is a small bunch of stems standing in a little water at room temperature, like flowers.
Use clean hands and clean scissors. Rinse basil under cool running water just before preparing it, dry it with a clean towel, and keep it away from raw meat and unwashed utensils.