BASIL

If you’ve ever grown your own fresh basil before, you’ve probably already planned a choice spot in your garden for this season. There is absolutely no comparison between home-grown and store bought basil. And the dried stuff? It’s missing all of the wonderful flavor!
With its aromatic, fresh, and distinct taste, basil usually has a line of gardeners anxiously awaiting the warm season, wanting to plant it as soon as possible to take advantage of a longer harvest. It’s versatility as an herb adds delicious and complex flavors to many Italian, French, and Asian dishes. Mince it up and add to sauces, top pizza with it, make pesto, or eat fresh with slices of tomato, mozzarella, and balsamic vinegar drizzled over it.

If you’re anything like us, after one season of growing your own, you’ll be nuts about basil, too!

GROWING TIPS:

• The Golden Rule of Basil is this: Protect it from the cold! Temperatures in the 30s and low 40s will ruin your basil. Wait until nighttime temperatures are consistently above 50° before you plant your basil. Treat it as a tender annual, making sure it gets lots of warm sunshine and is protected from cold snaps. If you want to plant it early, make sure it’s covered on cold nights or perhaps start it in a greenhouse.

• Like most annual vegetables, basil needs an even supply of water, but doesn’t like to sit in it. Make sure you plant into well-drained soil that’s free of large clods and bark. Try to water in the morning to give your basil ample time to dry out during the day before the colder temperatures of night. This will help prevent mold or rot.

• Fertilizing your basil with a feed containing a higher proportion of nitrogen will help promote leaf production. Garden-tone is a great fertilizer to use. Add some to the soil when planting your basil and top dress three to four weeks later.
  
  
• Basil is fast growing and tends to want to flower often. Pinching off flowering stems will redirect energy back into leaf production for greater harvests. You can harvest leaves as soon as they are big enough to use. Wait a week or two in between harvest for a fresh batch of leaves to fill in.
  
  
• In addition to being good food partners, basil and tomatoes are great when grown together. Both are beneficial to each other so consider leaving some space around your tomatoes for a few basil plants.

VARIETIES:

Boxwood
A compact variety, growing around 8-14 inches tall with all the flavor of its larger relatives, Boxwood basil is great as an ornamental around your garden, in a pot by your backdoor, or on a sunny window sill in your kitchen.

Lemon
Use Lemon basil to elevate your dishes even more with fresh taste and slight citrus notes. A great choice for fish, raw dishes, and believe it or not, ice cream.

Pesto Perpetuo
A delicious, non-flowering variety that produces lots of leaves. A great choice for making pesto, because more leaves means more pesto!

Sweet Italian
If you’re looking for that classic basil flavor, you’ll find it with Sweet Italian basil. Producing medium-sized leaves, this basil is great for chopping up and adding into sauces and topping pizza.

Large Leaf
Very similar to Sweet Italian basil. Larger leaves have some puckering and make an attractive addition to your Caprese salad.

Sweet Thai
With slender leaves and purple stems, Sweet Thai basil has a more assertive flavor that sometimes has a slight licorice or mint flavor. This variety makes a great addition to Asian dishes, especially to Thai stir-fries and curry dishes.