Growing basil easily

Last summer, I first tried growing basil in flats. It was a smashing success. Harvested often, I had lots of tender leaves to use in pesto and for flavoring. In contrast, the plants in the ground had their usual tough leaves, etc., although bees and other visitors enjoyed the flowers.

So this year, I duplicated the method. Fabulous, again. These flats are the multi-harvested one on the right, and the newly sown one on the left.

The benefits of shade

I'm rethinking a bit why the basil sown thickly in a flat near the potting bench is still relatively succulent compared to its brethren in adjoining pots and in the ground. I thought it was the benefits of fluffy potting mix, and richer fertilization, but now I'm thinking it's extremely useful that the flat is in filtered morning and afternoon shade.

I've always thought of basil as a warmth-loving plant (which it is), but maybe the blastingly hot afternoon sun here simply shuts down leaf growth, closing stomata and depressing photosynthesis, and therefore leaf expansion. The plants I transplanted to a container (from the flat) that receive more afternoon sun are looking more and more stressed as the heat wave continues, whereas a single plant in soil that's shaded by beans and in a spot that gets full afternoon sun looks quite nice. Perhaps I'll need to do an experiment! And more investigation about how basil flavors develop, etc., would also be interesting.

Certainly the combination of extreme heat and 10 hours of full sun isn't ideal for many vegetables - here in the South, both plants and the gardener are looking for a respite.

Delicious basil

I've grown basil for a long time, but never have been fully pleased with the results. Sometimes the plants would become large and woody, developing stronger flavors than were pleasing. Plants in containers always did better, probably because they remained well-watered.

But, clearly, I needed to cut it back more severely, too (a recent article in Organic Gardening suggested cutting at 6 nodes down to keep flowering in check -- wow -- it really worked).

An accidental experiment sowing a flat of older seeds has also been wildly successful,.

Germination was unexpectedly high, and after transplanting as many as I could manage, I just started harvesting the basil like mesclun mix. Fabulous! The leaves are tender and delicious, and as I cut, growth just continues. I'm definitely going to continue doing summer plantings in flats on a regular basis.

A good soaking

All of the plants in our garden looked so much better this morning; we ended up with about 8/10 of an inch with more rain overnight.

It makes a huge difference to parched soil.

The vegetable garden beds are like sponges, rich with organic matter, and I think the bean plants in the satellite garden took advantage of the moisture to grow an inch or two.

Yard-long bean seedlings
The basil seedlings seemed much more robust, and the squash plants are thriving, too.

I've gotten more summer squash (yellow and scalloped) this year than I ever normally do -- maybe having the rough-stemmed C. moschata plants surrounding them is good.

This scallop squash was larger than I like to harvest them, but they're still wonderful. Fresh young squash hardly seems related to grocery store yellow squash and zucchini.