If the recipe book is full to bursting with Mediterranean dishes, a single basil plant no longer covers the need for these aromatic herb plants. How to easily grow more copies by propagation, find out here.
Obtain seeds yourself and sow skillfully – this is how it works.
If you want to win the seeds yourself, allow the basil flower. After the stems have faded, pick them off. Over a bowl, scrape the flower-seed mixture with your fingers. Then sift it until the black seeds remain. Store the seeds in a dry and dark place until the date for sowing. In March/April proceed like this:
- Fill a seed tray with growing soil or peat sand.
- moisten the substrate with a fine spray
- sow the seeds and press them down as light germinators cover the seed tray with foil or place it in a heatable
- a heatable mini-greenhouse
- in a half-shaded window place at 20-25 degrees Celsius expect germination
Within 1-2 weeks, the cotyledons will sprout from the seed. The film can now be removed. While the seedlings are kept slightly moist, they quickly reach a growth height of 5 centimeters. Pricked out into a potting soil and sand mixture, the plantlets will be strong enough by mid-May to be planted out in the bed or pot.
Instructions for propagation by cuttings
Each vigorous basil has what it takes to become a mother plant for 10, 20 or more new plants. Cut the desired number of shoot tips at a length of 10 to 15 inches. If you make the cut just above a leaf axil, the royal herb will sprout again busily here. Continue in these steps:
- defoliate the cuttings in the lower half and place them in a glass of water.
- let them root in a half-shaded, warm place
- the process is complete when the root strands are 4-5 centimeters long
- fill a large pot with potting soil as well as sand, perlite or coconut fibers for permeability
Plant one basil at a time to the bottom pair of leaves and water generously.
Propagate purchased basil by division.
Ready-grown basil plants from the supermarket are so tightly packed together in their pots that they give up the ghost within a week. Clever amateur gardeners make a virtue of necessity and propagate the king herb by division. Here’s how:
Pot up the purchased basil and cut it into four pieces with a sharp knife.
Plant each segment in its own pot with a mixture of potting soil, compost and sand
Drainage at the bottom of the pot prevents harmful waterlogging. Alternatively, plant the segments directly into the garden bed.
Tips & Tricks
Does the basil from home-grown seeds taste completely different from the mother plant? Then it was one of the numerous varieties. In contrast to wild basil, with seeds of one variety it is always a guessing game which characteristics of the parent plants will prevail. Thus, amateur gardeners who are willing to experiment, create their own personal variety of basil.
