I’m so excited to be sharing about growing basil. It’s one of the things that we’ve managed to not kill for years, and we use it constantly in our cooking!
The basil you see in front of my daughter (and behind her, too) all started from a $3 plant from our HEB grocery store. Here’s my secret: basil loves heat! When you live in Texas, this works out well for both of you. It does best in full sun with rich soil and frequent watering.
Make sure that you don’t plant your basil before the last frost, unless you start the plants inside. Although basil is actually an annual, our plants have come back for 3 years now, making it $3 very well spent!
To harvest, simply pick the leaves from the plant. And when you harvest your basil, it will keep reproducing. You can also freeze the basil so that you have fresh herbs year ’round.
We use the sweet basil variety; I’d love to try lemon basil as well.
Here are some of my favorite recipes that use basil: Gluten-Free Brazilian Cheesy Bread;
and Tortellini with Basil and Pecans
