Growing Basil from Cuttings Part 1

April 13, 2010 Here is my pride and joy nearing its fist month.  The foliage has grown and the height has increased.  The grayish cover on the soil is made up of earthworm castings.  I also sprayed my basil with fish emulsion last April 11 around night time.  The sun and temperature during this summer season is positively scorching.  The temperature reaches up to 38 degrees Celsius during noon time and around 32 degrees Celsius during the afternoon.  The basil at the bottom is a victim of too much fish emulsion sprayed at 4pm in the afternoon.  That basil is the second transplant that was removed from the pot.

April 14, 2010 I had to pinch back my basil as it is starting to become leggy.  The picture at the bottom show the trimmings that I got from the plant.  The trimmings were removed with the use of a really sharp knife as pinching or using scissors can damage the delicate tissues of the stem.  

Since I do not plan on cooking the leaves, I decided to grow basil from cuttings.  The lower leaves were removed, as the level of leaves mark the limit of root growth.  Aside from that, the more leaves your cuttings will have, the faster it will dry up when it is planted in soil.  It is ideal that you should have at least 3-4 inches of stem that will be submerged in water.  The more stem area that you have, the more roots your basil will develop.  Some websites will tell you that it will take about 3-4 weeks for basil cuttings to develop roots.  I, on the other hand, have seen otherwise.  See that really small, weak looking cut of basil at the right of the cup?  Click on the picture and magnify.  If you look closely at the picture, you will see formed roots starting to become dense.  It took about a week for roots to appear, and I am guessing that by next week it will have established roots.  Let us see how this will go.