Basil leaves not getting big

[bgaviator]

I bought an established Basil plant from Lowes and planted it in the ground in my garden. I picked the big leaves just a few days later to use in a salad and I've been waiting for the plant to get some decent leaves back. While the plant has certainly gotten taller, and has established a lot of leaves on it, the leaves are just staying small. most of the leaves I'd say are only 1 to 1.5 inches in length. I picked one today and even though it has a good Basil smell, it didn't taste much like anything....Why aren't my leaves getting bigger? The plant gets good sun and good water.

[Troppofoodgardener]

Probably a bit too late to post this response but anyway...

Do you feed your basil anything? ie. manures, seaweed emulsion, compost etc

I find that if my plants are having a tough time, by applying some seaweed emulsion (like Seasol) really helps them through. If you can dig in some compost as well, plants love that stuff.

Maybe feed it some nitrogen - in the form of chicken manure, or any manure really. I don't think basil is a particularly fussy plant. Mine seem to grow fine on their own, some did have trouble getting established initally. But now they've taken off on their own.

The biggest leaves are about 3 inches long, but I still get small leaves about one inch. The most important thing is the taste. Make sure that you pinch the tops off the basil before they start flowering. If the plant starts to flower that means it's putting all its energy into producing flowers, and less in its leaves - where you want the flavour to stay. So pinch the tops off, and keep picking away at leaves in order to encourage bushy growth.

[Gary350]

This was not a good year for my Basil. I planted seeds in pots but they never came up so I bought a container with 3 basil plants. My soil has a lot of orgainic material already but I like to add more each time I plant something so I mixed in some compost when planting the basil. The 3 plants just sat there for a whole month never grew larger at all. I decided to water them with some miracle grow plant food and all 3 plants died. I bought 3 more plants and planted them in the same spot only I replace the soil with a shovel full of soil from my garden. After about 1 month the plants were a little taller, leaves started getting black around the edges and the plants all died. I refuse to buy more plants so I planted all the basil seeds I have in pots. I had about 120 seeds planted and 6 of them came up. I got them planted about the first week of July. They never grew to be large plants like last summer they were only knee high. I was afraid to fertilize again and the plants made a lot of small leaves. I waited all summer plants are still knee high and leaves are about 1" long. 2 weeks ago I picked 90% of the leaves hopping the remaining tiny leaves would get larger but they never did. My plants are making seed and it is suppose to frost Friday night. I will put a 5 gallon bucket over my plants at night to protect them from frost they will survive until we have a hard freeze. I hope to have enough seeds to plant a lot of basil next spring.

[applestar]

You know, my regular Sweet basil didn't do so well this year. I usually plant basil at the base of tomatoes and they're pretty happy. The sweet basil grew OK -- I've pack away a couple of gallon freezer bags and made a couple batches of pesto, but they quit early and I have none left. The other two varieties of basil -- Lime basil and Purple basil have done very well and I've dug some up to pot and grow inside through the winter.

Of the Sweet basil, the ones in heavy shade did much better than the others. I'm thinking it was the drought, and Sweet basil need more water and is less tolerant of heat than the other varieties.

[Troppofoodgardener]

I guess it would have been good to clarify the basil I grow...

I got mine locally from an organic farmer who called it 'organic basil', but I'm guessing it's just regular Sweet Basil. (green leaves, white flowers.. looks & smells like basil!?!) They were seedlings back then, about 7cms high.

I had no idea Sweet basil was sensitive to heat?? It's regularly about 90 degs F here, and my basil bushes are about 1 metre high, in full sun and doing pretty well when they look a bit tired I just apply a bit of NPK fertiliser and keep up the watering.

[applestar]

Don't know that it is, troppofoodgardener. I was just speculating on the fly... And putting the question out there.

Based on what you said, if it's not sensitive to heat, another possibility might be that it didn't like the extra moisture when the fall rains started since the ones throving are in raised beds or containers... Or that it's more sensitive to cold and bought it from the couple dips of low 40's and upper 30's weather we've had, even though they were in more protected locations than the other two varieties.

Less hardy, in any case, it seems.

[rainbowgardener]

Man... this was my best year for basil ever, drought and all. I still have some basil out there and I just looked at the last batch I brought in and thought oh no, more basil, what the heck will I do with this...

I think it liked the heat and didn't mind being a little drier than usual, although it would not have survived if I hadn't been watering.