Southern Utah Gardening: How to grow basil
I must admit that while I haven’t been ignoring my writing obligation directly, I just haven’t been doing anything of note in my garden as of late. The dog days of summer are my least favorite time to garden in St. George. The heat is oppressive and discourages me from getting out in my garden, and I find myself enjoying the pool so much more. However, I received a friendly nudge from The Independent’s editor and found myself looking for a project that was easy and quickly accomplished at 7 a.m. Since basil grows extremely well in our burning hot summers and mine was growing accordingly, I chose to prune it and dry some. Turns out, it was the perfect choice! Here’s how to grow basil in your own southern Utah garden.
Basil loves a hot, dry summer with moist, well-drained soil. Plant it in a sunny location, though sun all day is not necessary, and you have the ideal growing conditions for basil. There are a number of varieties of basil, and in my experience they all do equally as well as another. I have grown them from both seeds and starts and prefer the results of starting with seed. However, I can’t always patiently wait for seeds to get to size for harvesting without killing the plant. So I almost always buy a start or two in addition to sowing basil seed.
The basil in my garden looked robust and intent on distributing its seed by being a good size and in full bloom. However, when basil is busy producing flowers, the quality and quantity of leaves decreases. Removing the flowers on a regular basis will keep the leaves coming, and they will be as large as possible.
This particular variety of basil is a combination of an unknown variety and Purple Ruffles. I purchased this basil as a four-inch start at Ballard’s Nursery in La Verkin in May. The flowers on both varieties are purple, but the leaves are greener on the unknown. The leaves on Purple Ruffles are, obviously, purple and ruffled. I like the purple-leaved varieties because they are quite ornamental, and they have an intense and lovely aroma and taste.
I cut stems six to eight inches in length. I removed all flowers that were present. On that note, I have often used basil flowers in fresh flower arrangements. They are long lasting and quite pretty, especially the purple varieties. My end goal was to have a nicely shaped basil shrub with no flowers on it. I wanted the basil shrub to push a big flush of new growth so I could harvest more later.
I knew I wouldn’t use the harvested basil for any fresh purpose within a day or so. So, I then gathered a few of the cut stems together and secured them with a rubber band. I attached each group of stems to a clothes hanger by wrapping one loop of the rubber band around the bottom of the hanger and over the end of the stems. I also came across some raggedy parsley while harvesting the basil and harvested some of that, too. Bonus!
I hung the herb-laden hanger in my panty. A dark, cool spot with a bit of air circulation is a great place to dry herbs. I like the pantry because I go in my there often, and I won’t forget about my drying herbs. I have been known to leave a hanger of drying herbs in a spare bedroom closet for months. Out of sight, out of mind, eh?
In about four days, my basil was dry. The parsley wasn’t. So I left the parsley to dry longer and took the basil off of the hanger. I pulled individual leaves from the stem carefully so as not to crush them. I like to keep the leaves of all my dried herbs as whole as possible and crush them when I use them. The aromatics seem stronger and fresher when I do it that way. I put all my dried basil leaves in a Mason jar and fitted it with an airtight lid. I’ve done this with dill and oregano, too. Only I leave those leaves on the stems and just put them in the jar. While I used jars, any airtight container will do. I just think that my dried herbs look so pretty in the glass jars, and I find that I use them more often if I can see them.
The day I pruned my basil, I also applied some fertilizer to moist soil and watered again afterwards. I can already see the new growth coming along. If you want to still plant basil this summer, you should! There is plenty of time to get some going and get some great harvests. I’d probably plant starts, but I wouldn’t hesitate to plant some seeds as well — especially if you want a particular variety of basil and can only find seeds for it. Thai basil, Genovese basil, and Sweet basil are favorites of mine and should definitely be considered, in my humble opinion. Now get outside and enjoy your garden!
