This is my second year gardening veggies and herbs and am still figuring things out. Last year my basil plant was crazy huge! growing basil so fast and the leaves looked beautiful. This year though I used the exact same planter, three of my sprouts are looking okay but after the first harvest leaves stopped growing, and the new ones are starting to brown and shrivel. Did I harvest them wrong, why is this happening and what do i need to do?
by ilovejakekisszka
5 Comments
Are you harvesting by pulling off leaves? YouTube has lots of great tutorials on proper harvesting by pruning above a leaf node.
Water, water water. Basil is a stroppy little prick , it’ll curl up and try to die if you leave it alone for more than about 45 minutes.
It will usually recover within a day of a good drink though.
You did harvest them wrong. You want to harvest basil by cutting the stem, not plucking off leaves. Specifically, cut just above a set of nodes (where leaves branch off). This will cause new branches to grow between the leaves and the stem (in the axils). You should be able to find videos on YouTube.
Also it’s early, and basil is pretty sensitive to conditions, so you may just be off to a slow start. You may need to replant to really get things going.
Temp at night?
Basil plants typically like balmy temperatures. I see your in Pennsylvania. I’m in Delaware and I just now put my transplants in the ground. The evening temps aren’t high enough yet for Mediterranean plants like tomatoes, basil, and eggplant to really take off. Look up tutorials on how to prune a basil plant. You could literally cut the stalk in half and as long as there are leaves left to photosynthesize, more plant will grow.