Growing Basil 101

Basil can be easily cultivated outdoors or if you want to grow basil year-round, inside your home in containers. Just a couple of basil plants will give you enough of the herb to cook with for several months.

When growing basil outside of the house, make sure that the climate is warm before you start or else you will have a hard time growing it. Basil is a plant that loves hot hot weather. The daytime temps should achieve at least seventy degrees Fahrenheit and the night time temps should get to no less than fifty degrees (F). Make sure the herb gets 6 or more hours of sunshine a day. It is also super important that your topsoil have quick drainage.

When you go to sow/plant basil seed, just sprinkle the plant seeds on the garden soil and delicately pat them. This provides good contact with the soil to make certain that the seed will germinate. Cover over the seeds using a very thin layer of a good soil or compost and water the soil thoroughly. You will want to keep your soil moistened during the germination process, yet not too wet, or else the seeds could rot. You should see leaves poking through within a week's time. When it sprouts, the little plants will appear with a couple of wide leaves. After they have two pairs of true leaves you can thin them by removing the weaker plants. These basil plants should be placed no closer than twelve inches apart from one another. Regarding growing basil indoors, seeds could be started 3 weeks prior to the warm weather and transplanted outdoors when it's warm enough.

A basil plant must be watered at least once every seven days. Water thoroughly--if the soil drainage is good you should have nothing to worry about. Watering lots, less often, is better than watering a little bit regularly. Watering too frequently causes roots to not root as deeply. When watering, apply water to the bottom of the herb and never onto the leaves directly.

Basil plants really should be pruned all through the season to illicit new growth. Prune it by pinching the stems just above a set of leaves. You can do this anytime as soon as the plant grows to be over 3 inches high. When the plant gets older it'll begin to develop buds and blossoms. These blossoms can cause the basil to start to be bitter to the taste, so they must be pruned. Presence of these flowers will cause the plant to stop growing leaves. To prolong the life span of your plant, prune the blossoms the same way the leaves are pruned.

Now you have graduated Growing Basil 101. There are other resources for growing basil which I have found helpful as well, in case you want a little more information. Good luck and happy growing!