There’s nothing better and more rewarding than growing your own ingredients at home. It makes cooking all that more fun – and some say it even tastes more delicious too.
One popular herb to grow in the garden or in your kitchen is basil. This vibrant green ingredient instantly adds a punchy flavour to pasta sauces, salads and stir fries, and it’s pretty easy to grow at home. If your plant is looking a bit worse for wear and you want to give it a boost, then one quick task can help to transform your basil.
The pros at Epic Gardening recently took to TikTok to explain exactly how to grow a ‘ginormous’ basil plant. Describing it as a ‘teenager that wants to grow tall and gangly’, the expert says there’s a foolproof way to trick it into producing bushier leaves.
And it involves doing just one thing – taking your pruning scissors and making a few ‘very specific’ cuts here and there.
Demonstrating with his plant, the expert said: “In the case of basil, you have these – a little leaf node that’s coming out to promote more bushiness. You want to cut above that point, basically forcing the plant to be lower, but bushier.”
Although it might seem ‘crazy’ to cut huge parts of the plant off, it’s important to trust the process. Showing off a non-pruned basil plant, the expert said: “This is the point in normal basil cultivation where you would start to take these flowers off.
“When basil starts to flower like this, the leaves become a bit more bitter.”
However, since the leaf nodes have been cut, your basil shouldn’t flower at all – and should instead grow bigger and bushier thanks to the pruning you carried out.
Pruning your basil plant should never be overlooked, as the expert described it as a ‘two for one’ deal. He said: “Fresh basil for your pasta and a plant that keeps getting bigger and better. It’s like compound interest but for herbs.
“Keep doing this and your tiny basil plant turns into this massive, leafy beast that keeps cranking out flavor all season long. Trust me, your future self making pesto will thank you.”
Comments are closed.