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Growing and caring for basil outdoors is very simple. Previously, it was planted only in the garden, valued as a spicy-aromatic and medicinal crop. Now, thanks to the creation of new, highly decorative varieties, landscape designers have paid attention to basil. Dwarf forms are used for planting on the windowsill in order to have access to fragrant leaves all year round and improve the air in an apartment or house.
Description and features of the basil
Basil is a genus of shrubs and herbaceous plants consisting of 69 species with an annual or perennial life cycle from the Lamiaceae family. Appearance and growth differ depending on belonging to a particular taxon. In culture, the most common varieties of Basil are:
- fragrant (it is called ordinary, garden);
- mint (camphor);
- eugenolic;
- thin-flowered (tulasi).
Garden and ornamental varieties of basil grow up to 20-80 cm in the form of a branchy bush with shallow roots. The leaves can be large or small, smooth, corrugated, covered with hairs. Their color varies from lettuce to dark purple, the smell is anise, lemon, mint, clove, clove-pepper. Small flowers are collected in 6-10 pieces. in loose brushes.
Today, the question of how to distinguish a perennial basil from an annual is not before domestic gardeners and gardeners even in the southernmost regions. The culture is so thermophilic that at a temperature below 12-15⁰ C it stops the vegetation. Where temperatures rarely exceed 20 degrees in summer, growing basil outdoors does not make sense.
Terms of planting basil in open ground
It is possible to plant basil in open ground only after the soil has warmed up, and the temperature even at night will not fall below 5⁰ C. In some regions it is May, but in most it is the beginning or middle of June.
It must be taken into account that the best temperature for the development of basil is above 16⁰ C. The culture is grown in open ground in the south, already in a temperate climate it is worth considering protecting it with a film or other shelter. But it is most reliable in cool or cold regions to plant annual and perennial basil plants indoors.
How to plant basil outdoors
The place for growing basil should be open to sunlight, the soil should be close to neutral acidity, permeable. On heavy soils, the culture grows poorly. Bushes should be protected from strong or cold winds.
The optimal scheme for planting basil in open ground is 30 cm between plants, with a row spacing of 40 cm. A denser placement of bushes is allowed in the greenhouse.
When growing basil for yourself, it is not necessary to allocate a separate area for it. The bushes planted on strawberries, peppers or tomatoes will feel at ease, and the neighbors will be protected from pests, and their fruits will be made more fragrant and tasty.
If the site is located on loose fertile black soil, and the basil is grown for own consumption, a recess is dug out, a bush is planted in it and watered. All. For an annual fruitless crop, this is quite enough.
They act differently if the soil is poor, dense, or the cultivation of basil is carried out for commercial purposes. This implies the desire to get an early harvest or increase the volume of vegetative mass, which is unlikely to be obtained without the use of fertilizers.
Organic matter is introduced into the soil – humus or compost, and dug up. This increases the fertility and permeability of the soil. In the annual and bush perennial basil in the first year of life, the root system is weak, so shallow holes are dug. Young plants are planted, slightly buried, and watered abundantly. You can add a teaspoon of complex fertilizers, or fertilizers designed specifically for aromatic plants and greens, to each well.
How to grow basil outdoors
If a separate area is allocated for growing basil and caring for it in the open field, then good predecessors will be:
- legumes – beans, peas, lentils, etc.;
- pumpkin – cucumber, zucchini, squash, pumpkin;
- nightshade – potatoes, tomato, eggplant, pepper.
Watering in the open field
Basil does not like watering with cold water. But often in the garden there is no large container in which the liquid is heated. Then all open ground crops are irrigated with water from a well or pipeline, including basil. This, of course, is not good, but you should not panic. And also urgently expose buckets of water to the sun, or heat it in pots to dilute the cold, and then water manually. Just irrigate the basil in the morning – then the temperature of the soil and water differ less.
The frequency of watering is determined by each gardener independently. On the one hand, the culture tolerates some “abstinence” in the consumption of moisture, it even adds flavor to it. On the other hand, basil grown in an annual culture is still grass, and with a weak root system, strong drying can destroy it.
In the heat, the plant in the open field is watered more often, in cool weather – rarely. The structure and permeability of the soil is important. Loams, heavy or organic-rich soils retain water and sand better, black peatlands require frequent irrigation. On average, basil is watered 1-2 times a week in summer, but not abundantly and only after the soil dries out (but does not turn into stone from lack of moisture).
Watering basil after planting in open ground
Growing and caring for basil in the open field begins immediately after planting. Until the plant takes root, it should be watered frequently, settled in the sun or warm water.
This should be done every other day, and if the weather is hot and the soil dries quickly – once a day. Abundant watering will lead to nothing – the liquid evaporates quickly, and the weak, located in the upper layers of the soil, the root again requires moisture. It is enough to give 0,5 liters of water under each bush.
The signal that the basil has taken root, and you can switch to a regular watering system, will be the moment when new leaves and young shoots appear.
Does the culture need top dressing
Watering and feeding basil is an interesting question. If you overdo it with moistening the soil (without bringing it to the state of a swamp), there will be more greenery, but the aroma is noticeably weaker than it could be. But in any case, it will be sufficient for both culinary specialists and those who like to treat themselves or loved ones with smells.
But with top dressing, everything is a little different. Many types of basil in their homeland are perennial crops, the supply of nutrients in the plant is initially sufficient to survive the “bad” year without losing viability. Most of the energy is spent on flowering and seed setting, but this is exactly what gardeners do not need, the buds break off as soon as they appear!
Basil is able to give green mass for salads, freezing, spices, treatment and aromatherapy without any top dressing, and it will be the best raw material!
But if the basil is fed at least 2-3 times during the growing season in the open field, the bush will be much larger. With intensive fertilization, the harvest of marketable green mass will increase by 3-4 times. The scent of the leaves will be strong and rich, but it will be a lot short compared to water-only basil.
Collection of green mass is carried out before flowering or at its beginning. If the buds are not allowed to tie, the nutrients contained in the soil will be enough for the basil until the end of the season.
Fertilizers of mineral origin tend to turn into nitrates. If the doses are small, it’s not scary. But the basil does not need as much nitrogen as it gets into its organs when fertilizing every 2 weeks. He begins to “fatten” – to build up a lot of greenery, poorly forms buds. Like, what’s wrong with that? Excess nitrate is poorly excreted from leaves and shoots. Of course, if the herb is used little by little, only as a seasoning, and even in dried form, there is no problem. But as a medicine, such basil will not bring any benefits. In aromatherapy, it is also better not to use it. Fresh should be used carefully.
Commercial cultivation of basil without top dressing is unprofitable. It takes a long time to reach the state when the shoots can be cut and does not apply to early ripening products. Of course, you can pull out 1-2 leaves on a salad or in a marinade even a week after planting. But commercial cutting begins, depending on the variety, 60-90 days after emergence!
Correctly when planting basil, add fertilizer to the soil, and even better – humus and ash. When the cut is made, the culture is fed with fermented mullein or green manure. So the basil will grow new shoots faster.
Of course, you can replace such “delicacy” with a complex mineral supplement, or give it every 2 weeks, as many sources advise. But the aroma of the basil will be slightly different, it (both the aroma and the basil) will lose its healing properties, and for those who are fond of Ayurveda or other similar practices, it will turn out to be useless.
Weeding and loosening the soil
Basil is very fond of shallow loosening of the soil. If you do it 1-2 times a week, you will need to water the culture less, and the weeds will simply stop growing. It is very convenient to form bushes for this, cutting off the lower branches for food first of all – then you won’t have to “dance” around the plant during loosening.
Removing flowers
Flowers should be left only on those plants from which they are going to get seeds. Naturally, they do not touch the basil, which is grown for decorative purposes. The rest of the bushes pluck the buds as soon as they appear.
Topping
Basil responds very well to pinching. When planting in open ground, you can remove not only the top of the main shoot, but also shorten the side shoots (if any). When the plant takes root and grows, the operation should be repeated. This will increase the yield of green mass without any fertilizers by about 2 times.
In the future, when plucking buds, collecting leaves for salad or marinade, one should remove some of the shoots that are excessively elongated compared to other shoots.
Reproduction
Basil is propagated by seedlings, by sowing seeds in the ground (April) and vegetatively. Twigs take root well in water, sand or wet peat. It is better not to rely on self-sowing – even in the Central regions of Ukraine, after a warm winter, only a few random shoots can hatch.
Harvesting
First you need to decide what to collect – greens for sale or freezing, or raw materials for drying. Young shoots 10-12 cm long can be cut up to 5 times per season. At the same time, the maximum yield of green mass per square meter of basil plantings is 1,5 kg. Pruning is carried out at the same time all the bushes as the branches grow. Then the plants are fed.
For subsequent drying, basil is harvested at the beginning of flowering, since then the most essential oils are concentrated in the leaves. It is better to prune in the budding phase than to be late. Well-opened flowers draw on themselves all the substances accumulated by the plant (ethereal, for example, to attract bees).
Dry the basil by tying the shoots in bunches and hanging them in a dry, hot, well-ventilated area without direct sunlight. Leaves can be cut off and laid out in a thin layer. But then you have to often stir and turn them over. To save all the essential oils, the drying temperature should not exceed 35 degrees.
Diseases and pests of basil
Basil does not belong to crops that often get sick, and pests generally prefer to bypass not only its bushes, but also those that simply grow nearby. This is often used by proponents of organic farming to make it easier to deal with the many crop-destroying insects.
If the basil grows freely, watered moderately, it is unlikely to get sick. Crowded plantings and high humidity are more of a problem in greenhouses than outdoors. But if the culture was planted without taking into account the growth of the bush, next to plants that require frequent watering, problems may arise. Basil will also suffer in too rainy summers, especially on dense soil. He can get sick:
- Fusarium. The stem will become thin, brown, then the top will dry out, the bush will gradually fade, despite watering and loosening the soil.
- gray rot. This fungal disease begins to develop on the damaged parts of the plant. For example, if, when collecting leaves for salad or marinade, you do not carefully cut them with scissors or pinch them off, but simply pull them, you can severely injure the plant. Gray rot appears in the appearance of first a white and then a gray fluff on infected shoots.
In both cases, the diseased plant is simply destroyed, and as soon as possible. Preventive spraying of basil is not carried out, it is simply planted freely, not poured, individual leaves and twigs are pinched off or cut off carefully.
Conclusion
Growing and caring for basil outdoors is much easier than you might think after reading any article on the Internet. If you only need a few bushes, they can be planted in place of the fallen tomato seedlings and simply collect the leaves as needed.