One of the most popular herbs or Herbs, if you're in the UK, is basil or Basil.
It is one of my favorites. I've grown so many different varieties of it.
I've grown it up to the microgreen stage, to the baby stage,
sold it to restaurants, used it as a pollinator plant, propagated it endlessly.
And so that's what we're talking about today. An overview of basil care,
looking specifically at this variety right here as our example,
to demonstrate all sorts of different ways to grow and care for basil.
Kevin Espiritu from Epic Gardening,
where it's my goal to help you grow a greener thumb.
And basil is such a great crop to learn a lot of different things in the garden.
First of all, it doesn't produce a fruit or flower that you use.
And so it's a simpler plant to grow than many other things.
Let's say a squash or a pepper or tomato can be a little more complex.
So it's a great beginner plant, endless variety in the kitchen,
and also endless varieties to grow in general. And as you'll see,
pruning you can learn with basil and you can learn some great propagation
techniques. This particular variety is coming out of Proven Winners.
It's their Amazel basil variety, which they sent out to me.
So they're the sponsor of this video.
And I just wanted to say thank you to them for allowing me to try this one out
because it's got some pretty cool properties, which we'll talk about later on.
But without further ado,
cultivate that Like button for Epic basil bushes and let's get into the video.
I'm going to do a little pruning while we talk about the basics of basil
varieties. You have your Greek varieties, you have your Italian styles,
like your Genovese basil, your sweet basil.
And then you have things like Thai basil, purple ruffles basil, dark opal basil.
And then you also have what I'll call the flavored world of basil.
So cinnamon basil, lemon basil, lime basil.
These sorts of things are also available to you.
And I do a video on eight different types that you might not know about. Man,
this is really in need of a haircut.
But what I have here is an example of what basil can do if you're in a
climate that can support it growing year round.
So this is African blue basil and again,
it's a variety that you certainly could eat but the flavor is just not as
desirable as other ones.
And you can see what it likes to do is throw out tons and tons of flower spikes
and really not a whole lot of bushy leaves.
These certainly don't look like a Genovese basil style leaf.
And so what I'll do is I'll just perennialize this one by never really taking it
out of the garden. And if I want,
I can cut it down really severely and it'll grow back.
And I'm going to show you in a second over here, what that looks like,
but that's one way to manage it. But as far as basil in the garden,
let's talk light, let's talk watering, let's talk soil, let's talk fertilizer.
So it's one of an, it's kind of an easy plant.
It's really just six to eight hours of light a day. It's a pretty thirsty plant.
If you can give it the water, it'll take it. And then as far as soil,
a rich somewhat well draining soil is perfectly fine.
I find a nice amount of mulch on top of the soil surface does wonders for it,
keeps that moisture in there. And then, you know,
with basil it's about using it before you lose it if you're growing a variety
that doesn't stay too tasty after it flowers. Again,
this is one that I'm not really even growing for that reason.
This is my bee attractor.
But right here I've got Greek columnar basil and this one is interestingly bred
because, as you can see, it doesn't really put up a lot of flowers.
And it grows, as you might imagine from the name, in almost a perfect column,
these sort of spires. And so this one, I don't have to do a whole lot to,
I can just come out and use it as needed because this one doesn't even produce
flowers at all.
But if we take a look at Amazel it's got a couple of unique properties that I
think you'll enjoy.
Here's just a quick example of how quickly it'll come back if you cut it back
really hard. So this was another African blue that was very,
very large - about like this, maybe this tall - flower spikes everywhere.
And I cut it back severely down here. And as you can see,
it's coming back with a vengeance and the flowers are already starting to come
back. The reason I did it is because it was overtaking the bed.
I wanted this lemongrass hanging out in the back here to get some more light.
I wanted some other herbs down here to get some more light.
And so I hacked it back, used that stuff for my compost, threw it to my worms.
They were completely fine with it and it has come back really nicely.
So let's talk now about some pruning and propagation tips. So first of all,
it's important to understand the anatomy of a plant.
So with our basil here,
what we can see is I've done what we'll call some bushing pruning.
So if I get in here, you can take a look, see this section right here.
This was the main stem.
I clipped that and forked it into one going this way and one going this way.
Now I did it again up here by coming in,
see this main stem would've continued on up this way,
completely happy living its own life.
But then I came in and I gave it a clip just like that and forked it one
more time.
And I just did it one more time up here to create a more bush like structure.
You can see also over here, the same thing.
It's just that I have a little bit extra coming on cause I've got a couple
different plants down here, but the same idea.
So if I was to make one of these pruning cuts,
I want to show you really close up how you would do it.
So here I have one that I've already pruned right there.
Now what I'm doing is I'm removing this main stem,
even though this is not really the main stem cause I've done some pruning cuts
already.
But what that does is it forces the growth hormone to be redistributed
relatively evenly to these two right here.
So it'll go whoop and they'll come out at an angle.
So following that same principle,
if I was to cut right here I would be removing top growth.
So we're shortening the plant and we're forcing angular offshoots to come
out,
thus bushing it up and actually multiplying the amount of leaves that we get.
Because you're going to get a stem coming this way,
stem coming this way with all the corresponding leaves. So what I'll do,
come in, right above there, clip that off.
And now this is going to go into my dishes, my pestos, what have you.
And these, in time,
will start bushing out really nicely thus creating a nice globular look to the
basil. Now if you wanted to take a cutting that you can then propagate,
this would not really be a pruning technique, but it's more a propagation move,
what you would do is you would come in below the node.
So instead of above the node for the pruning cut, you come in below,
I find this works a little bit better for me, and take a cut,
little angled cut just like that.
And then you can strip off the leaves just like this on the lower node.
Take that, put this into water. You'll get roots coming out here.
You could also put it in soil. You'll also get roots.
Sometimes I find that the water method works a little bit better.
And then you can plop this in and boom, you've propagated it.
So this is my African blue basil, which is kind of a rare one to find.
And so I like to take these cuttings and give these out to my friends.
Now this point in a basil's life is typically the point where you would say,
come in and make some pruning cuts here to remove these flowers because the
flowers can affect the flavor of the leaves,
which is of course why we're growing the basil. Now this is a beautiful bush.
It's bushing up quite nicely. I've done some nice pruning on it,
but this is the Amazel basil from Proven Winners.
And there's a couple unique qualities of it.
One of them is it doesn't stop producing vegetative growth,
these leaves, once it starts flowering.
And the flavor fall off isn't as severe. In fact,
I haven't noticed much of one at all when I do this.
And so I can actually leave these on if I want to.
Of course I could prune them off if, if,
if I need to or if I want to just for the looks. But it looks kind of nice.
I bring in some nice pollination, but at the same time,
you start to see new growth nodes coming out underneath the flower
spires and they'll bush up even further.
So it's kind of a nice little quality that I like on this particular variety of
basil, this Amazel basil.
But if you are growing a variety that does have a flavor falloff,
then you can come in and make some more pruning cuts.
This would just be another pruning tip or another pruning methodology here to
improve the flavor and continue the length of time that the basil is
throwing out a lot of vegetative growth.
Basil can get hit by all sorts of pests and diseases, aphids, Japanese beetles,
these sorts of things. As you make your pruning cuts, you do your propagations,
you're taking off your flowers, all that kind of stuff, just keep an eye out.
I can already see that I've gotten something munching on this particular plant
over here and a little bit over here. So I need to figure out which one it is.
I don't see anything on it right now. Once I identify that,
then I can identify the proper control methods for it.
So that's something to think about. But then in the world of disease,
your bigger ones are going to be your mildews.
So you've got your powdery mildew,
which I've got a whole video on and a whole article on.
But basically with that one,
get it as soon as you possibly can because it will quickly spread and it can
just decimate it. But then basil also suffers quite heavily from downy mildew,
a different form of mildew. What's interesting about this particular variety,
the Amazel again, is that it has a resistance bred into it.
So the downy mildew resistance is pretty high in this one.
I have not suffered from it and I have on other varieties.
So I think that's a fantastic quality if you're in an area that specifically is
hit by downy mildew.
So just another cool little benefit of this particular variety.
Another fun tip is to think of basil as an understory companion plant style
plant for your summer crops that have grown tall. So if you've got,
peppers are an okay example, but I would say tomatoes,
specifically indeterminates, are an even better example.
So let's imagine I grew an indeterminate tomato up and they're going to go six,
eight, 10, 12 feet sometimes depending on how you trellis them.
What you can do is you'll come in and prune all that lower growth.
And then what's a great way to cover that soil with something productive that
acts almost as a living mulch and doesn't compete too much with tomatoes as they
mature later on in their growing season? Well, you guessed it,
a basil bush much like this one right here.
So you can come in with some transplants, maybe halfway through the summer,
and put that in and get even more out of your space while those tomatoes are
still growing and maturing.
Basil is one of the easier crops to grow and a great crop for a beginner
gardener because you get to practice your propagation techniques, your pruning,
and just the general care of a pretty simple plant.
Light and water and soil requirements aren't too fussy.
So you can do a lot with it, both in the garden and in the kitchen.
And thanks again to Proven Winners for sending out the Amazel basil,
which is amazing. Especially if you deal with downy mildew,
or you just want a lot of nice leafy growth and you don't want that flavor drop
off after the flowers start to form. So give it a try,
go ahead and hunt it down, if you can get it at your local garden center,
nursery, order it directly from them. And until next time,
good luck in the garden and keep on growing.