Growing Basil – Tips for Growing, Snipping, Harvesting, and Preserving

Growing basil?  Here are some tips are growing, snipping, harvesting, drying and freezing basil.

I have tremendous success growing basil in our raised-bed garden, in 2-gallon pots, and in our tower garden. If you know me you know I’m into instant gratification so I rarely grow from seeds. I usually buy 2 basil plants: sweet and purple.  The sweet I put in the Tower Garden and the purple I plant with my other herbs in pots.  Sweet is for Italian tomato-based foods and purple is for Mexican foods, drinks, and salads. When I find a seedling I plant lime basil for fish.  Want to learn more about Tower Gardens? My Tower Garden

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Growing Basil

Because basil produces edible leaves, it needs more nutrients like the nitrogen found in blood meal.  I get Burpees Dried Bone Meal in early spring and it lasts a long time if it is kept dry. Growing basil also needs a lot of water. It can handle the soil drying out but it really likes to be moist.

Basil loves the sun and needs at least 6-8 hours of bright sunlight a day. The only time I’ve killed a basil plant is when I left it in the shade of the pergola.  Withered, black, dead!

Cutting and Harvesting Basil

Basil is a fast grower so you can harvest basil in about a month or when the plant is about 8″ tall. Growing basil plants thrive by frequent cutting. Basil will actually produce more leaves if it’s aggressively trimmed a few times since everywhere you cut the stem it produces two new stems. These are the nifty scissors I use to trim all my herbs: Fiskar Herb Trimming Scissors  Pinch or cut at the leaf node which is the joint in the stem.  New branches and leaves will grow from the node.

 

Most importantly, the more you pick the more it grows but don’t let it flower. When flower heads start to form on a plant, it’s time to prune your basil.  Pinching off the flower heads prevents the plant from putting energy into producing seeds, allowing it to grow more leaves. It’s amazing how pinching actually produces more leaves! Pinching off stops flowers from forming but sometimes flowers happen quickly! Remove the flowers as soon as they emerge. As the plant goes to seed the leaves will taste bitter.

 

Preserving Basil

Basil has a long growing season and there are many ways to preserve your basil for year-round enjoyment.

Drying – With the humid weather we “enjoy” in the South it just makes sense for me to use an electric dehydrator. But, if you live in a drier climate try hang drying or screen drying. It’s best to store whole leaves to keep the flavor. Shelf-life of dried leaves is about one year.  Plan to dry some basil in September and will add details and photos. 

Freezing – Because I cook with Extra-Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) I like to freeze basil and EVOO in small lidded-cups.  It’s really easy to prepare and doesn’t take a lot of time.  When I have a lot of basil I’ll make 8 to 12 mini-cups in next to no time.  Our cousin, Katie, freezes batches of basil and lemon juice in ice cube trays.  She says lemon juice freezes better than oil.  She uses the frozen basil and lemon juice in soup, pasta, spaghetti, and zoodles. They keep for about a year or until the next batch of basil is ready to harvest.

After picking basil leaves wash and prepare the leaves for freezing. Washing and drying time is shorter by using a salad spinner.  Mine is really, really old but there’s one similar at Wal-Mart or delivered to your door by Amazon:  Salad Spinner

But, if you plan to store the basil (or any herbs) in the fridge wait to clean until you use the herbs. Damp herbs will mold quickly.

Remove the stems!  Using herb scissors snip the basil into pieces.  When I tried my sister’s herb scissors I knew I had to get some! The have 10 blades instead of just 2. You can get them at Jenaluca Herb Scissors – Heavy Duty 5 Blade Kitchen Shears or at kitchen stores.

Place the basil in the 2-oz plastic lidded-cups.  Sometimes these are hard to find at Wal-Mart so when I do find them I grab them!  You can order them from Amazon, too: 2-oz plastic lidded-cups

Next, fill the cups with olive oil or lemon juice leaving space for freezing growth.

Label your plastic lids with Sharpie markers.

Cover with plastic wrap and place in the freezer for 3-4 hours.

After 3-4 hours remove from freezer, add lids, and store in a large plastic container. (Not necessary but it’s what I do to keep the freezer organized).

You can use this method for any kind of herbs that cook well with Olive Oil or lemon juice!  I had way too much cilantro this week so I froze it using this method.

Preserving

Dad made this jelly from purple basil.

Quote from Dad:  ‘if purple has a taste this is what it would taste like’.

Now that you’ve got all this basil stored you need some recipes!  Click and you’ll find the recipe for Dad’s Basil Jelly and Basil Recipes – Our Favorites

Please comment and share your favorite recipes using basil too!