Steps for Growing Basil in Pots

Do you love to enjoy a good homemade pesto but don’t always find fresh basil? Well, you’re in luck because today we will see growing basil in pots still to have it on hand when we need it in our kitchen. Also, if you don’t know, basil is a plant that repels flies and mosquitoes, another good reason to have it in our kitchen.

We can grow basil at home by planting seeds or cutting -a twig cut from another plant- and it is very simple in both cases. Then we will only need a sunny window so that the plant receives the light it needs and enjoy this always fresh seasoning.

Steps for growing basil in pots

1. You have to prepare the seedbeds with moistened vegetable mulch and place one or two seeds per seedbed, covering them with very little soil.
2. Then we cover the seedbed with plastic wrap so that the soil stays moist and we leave the seedbed next to a window that receives sun. Make sure that the soil is always moist by spraying it with water once or twice a day.
3. When we see that some leaves begin to appear, it can be left without plastic, but we must continue moistening the soil daily until the plants have grown a few centimeters and can be transplanted into the final pot.
4. If we are going to plant several, we must make sure that we leave at least 15 cm of separation between one and the other, which will serve as a reference to choose the pot’s size. However, I prefer aromatic ones in individual pots because if some do not, it comes out ahead there is no juggling to remove it from the large pot without loading the rest.
5. You have to water the pot daily, preferably in the morning, to evaporate during the day. The soil should be moist but not saturated with water.
6. To keep the plant in good condition, it is highly advisable to remove the flower heads when they come out together with the two leaves that are just below since the flowers weaken the rest of the plant and cause fewer leaves to come out.

When we need to cut leaves to use them in a recipe, large leaves should always be cut from the top, taking care not to damage the small leaves growing at the base.

How to grow basil in pots from cuttings?

We can also get a new basil plant starting from another plant’s cuttings, which is now the best time to do it and is even more comfortable than the previous method.

The cuttings are the branches that come out of the main stem so that you understand it better. They are the ones that we sell when we buy a bunch of fresh basil. Only it is better to do it with the freshly cut cuttings. We introduce the cuttings in a container with water or with a natural rooting agent made with lentils (1 measure of lentils with 4 measures of water are put in a container, covered with a cloth and left to soak 4 days until they germinate, after the 4 days, everything is crushed, strained, and the resulting liquid is diluted by mixing 1 part of liquid with 10 of water). Once the cuttings have taken root, we can transplant them to the final pot.

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