Welcome to this post that will talk about what you can do when your basil is flowering. You should not take this as a bad sign. It’s wonderful that it’s blooming. This means that it’s enjoying the environment it’s growing in and you are doing very well keeping it healthy. But once it starts blooming it will develop less new shoots for you to harvest. So picking the flowers might be a very good idea. There are essentially two things you can do once it’s flowering. Either pick them or let them be. Both have some pros and cons that we will discuss below.
Have you picked a bunch of basil and it’s starting to turn brown now. Perhaps you are wondering if it’s still any good. We have written an article here that will answer that for you. Find the article right here, Is Basil Bad When It Turns Brown.
My Basil Is Flowering What Should I Do
There are essentially two different routes you can take when your basil plant is starting to flower. Just like we said in the beginning paragraph, either you pick them or you leave them. Both choices carry some pros and cons with them.
If you choose to pick them then you need to continue doing this throughout the whole season. Just because you picked early will not mean that they won’t continue developing later on. But what are the pros of picking the flowers then? Well the biggest one is that the plant will now again focus more energy on producing new stems and leaves. Just like it did then you first planted it. As the plant is flowering more energy and focus goes towards that. This is because it prioritizes spreading its basil seeds eventually after the blooming is over and it has been pollinated.
The other choice you can do is nothing. You can just leave the plant as it is and let it bloom. This is a good choice because your friendly bees in your garden will now have more nectar to collect and bring to the beehive. Basil is actually a fantastic herb for this reason since it contains a lot of it.
What To Do With Basil When It Flowers
If you choose to let it bloom then continue like normal and water the plant properly, never letting the soil dry out. Always keeping it damp and moist for the best results. But like we said in the paragraphs above talking about picking the flowers. Not doing that will of course produce less leaves and the overall flavor will also be less. It will dull out eventually and even turn butter at the very end of the season. But at this point you are more or less growing the basil plant to collect the seeds from it one day.
Let’s summarize a bit on what we have been talking about. If you pick the flowers you will get more harvest during the season. It will continue focusing on developing new stems and leaves. But if you don’t pick them, the taste will dull and less leaves will come forth. But on the other hand, you will help the bees living in the garden as they have now more nectar to collect.
Basil is one of the most vulnerable herbs once it has been harvested from. So we want to keep the leaves as fresh as possible and as long as possible. In this article we discuss precisely that, How To Keep Fresh Basil From Turning Black.
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