gardening
Story by Pat Rubin
Sweet basil
Genovese basil
Purple basil
A basil for all palates Varieties add color and aroma to gardens, flavor to dishes
Plant it in the vegetable garden, put it in pots, grow it on a sunny windowsill, but make sure you include basil ( Ocimum basilicum ) in your summer garden. Use it fresh or dried to flavor sauces, meats and fish. Toss it into salads or add a few leaves to your herb tea. Pick a leaf every time you’re in the garden just to enjoy its aroma. Grow several kinds for a colorful, scented garden. Basil, an annual, is part of the mint family. It is a tender herb, so plant it in the spring after all danger of frost has passed. For plenty of leaves to harvest, plant two or three plants. Basil prefers six to eight hours of sun per day, regular watering and fertile soil. Space plants about 12 inches apart. They will produce leaves all summer. The more you harvest, the longer basil will produce. Come August or September, however, the plant will start to make flowers. By cutting off the flowers, you fool the plant into producing more leaves than flowers.
Most garden centers carry several varieties of basil. Some cooks use Genovese basil for salads, another for sauces and still another for seasoning meat, but I find the common basil works on just about anything, from pesto to sauces to salads. Autumn’s first frost will kill the plant, so as the season comes to a close, I cut away large stems of leaves to either dry or use for pesto. Freeze pesto in ice cube trays, and then store the cubes in a freezer container. One or two pesto cubes are enough for pasta. To dry basil, strip the leaves off the stem and put them in a bowl or a paper bag. Shake the bag or toss them around each day until completely dry, then store whole leaves in a jar or plastic bag. Don’t crush them until you’re ready to use them.
Pat Rubin cbmagazine@californiabountiful.com
MORE ONLINE Pat Rubin features the seasonal plants lilac, bearded iris and English lavender, and answers reader questions about tomato seedlings and compost at californiabountiful.com.
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Spring 2024
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