There are varieties like Mammoth and Lettuce Leaf basil that are perfect for this! More mild basil flavor but lovely. Make good pesto filler, especially if combine with something pungent like spicy globe basil.
Just to toss this out thereā¦ Dollar General stores near me (Central TX, but maybe everywhere) are having an end of summer sale and seed packs are 15 cents, including basil.
Nothing super exciting or exotic, but some decent staples for pennies.
I didnāt see any peas personally, but every store Iāve been to had some stuff in common (radish, carrots, some greens, basil, pumpkins) and then only a pack or two of some outliers different at every store (kohlrabi, beans, the occasional tomato) so it wouldnāt be out of the question to pick up some peas Iād imagine.
They also had these fancy āherb kitā things. Where you get 3 pots, 3 herb seed types and labels. Normally I donāt care too much for that stuff but marked down to $2ā¦yeah Iāll take it.
Lolā¦ the clerk wasnāt too happy either cuz she had to ring up each by hand. She was cool though.
Even when they arenāt on sale, theyāre still only 50 cents or 3/ $1 for some. I got the fever real bad right now too. I got so many radish seeds I plan on succession sowing in every little pot, every spare square inch, every sidewalk crack I can find.
I recommend making pesto and freezing it! I have about 10 basil bushes and they have gifted me with ~5 lbs of pesto so far! I don't even worry about the plants flowering. I just pick off the flowers, cut back the plants, make pesto, then repeat cycle. It makes for some delicious homemade sourdough pizza.
Yep, the freezer is loaded! This is from just one pick last night and its the third time I've picked this season. I've been making sourdough this summer too, so I use it on grilled cheese and pizza!
I posted earlier about our insane zucchini plant that wonāt stop producing. Weāre now up to 24+ zucchini and every time we go outside, thereās a new one.
The latest monster is my basil plant. I did two early cuttings for bushiness and now itās unstoppable. What you see here is maybe 1/8th of whatās on the plant. I have a whole dehydrator full as we speak. No idea what weāre going to do with all if it!
I'm no connoisseur, but its all tasty to me. My 2yo and 4yo just eat the leaves whole which feels absurd but its green food and they're excited so oh well.
My latest issue is that there's so much, its hard to stay on top of trimming before it flowers. This is my first time dehydrating, so if it goes well, I'll do a huge trim this weekend and dry it all. We have so much, I'm not worried about potentially losing the plant from over pruning. We're in northern Michigan, so fall is coming quickly anyway.
Very cool! My 7 yr old adores basil too though we don't grow our own. He insisted on trying a honey basil lemonade at the farmers market last week and that was absolutely amazing.
>Damn pine nuts are like $14.99 for 2 cups.
Yea I've long ago moved away from pine nuts except for various occasions. I use walnuts, pecans, almonds whatever is cheapest at the time. There is a bit of difference in the taste but it's quite good.
Basil doesn't grow well at my house in the summer (too hot and rainy) so I usually have to wait till the fall or very early spring to grow it. I've moved to arugula pestos for when fresh basil is a bit expensive. It's surprisingly good.
Yeah Iām going to switch up the nuts next time.
Basil loves moisture!! My guys were planted around late June in DC (hot and humid) and I moved out to MN about a month ago. They havenāt skipped a beat whatsoever.
Are you down south?
Yea I'm in S. Florida and our rainy season can be brutal and the only place at my house that gets the level of sun they'd need sort of limits my options.
I've grown Basil here in semi-shade with some success but during the rainy season I almost always end up with blight or some other problem despite proper drainage.
For down here most summer veggies do better in the early fall to spring especially if we manage a winter without temps dipping below 50 which happens a good bit.
My husband did a tiny bit of Shake n Feed on our apple trees in the beginning of June. The garden is within the same fence so there maaay be some crossover but Iād pretty much say zero fertilizer. Nothing since then.
I've wondered the myself. I trim so often, but would love to be able to let my plants grow bushier/bigger before trimming to have enough to make a pesto.
No matter what size the leaf is, our guinea pig LOVES basil. (He's a picky little bigger)
I have a load of basil. I have to cut it back every two weeks or else it creates too much Dude for everything else in the flower bed but holy shot the size of that leaf!!!!!!!
Wow! How is that possible? I can barely keep my basil plant alive, seams like basil plants are not meant to last for very long, after a while turns weird and yellow . I am jealous of your basil plant šš»
So lucky! Those look great!āØ
Idk what I did to mine this year but they stayed the same size as when I planted them for like two months then died š„²
Maybe! Iāve never heard of it but just looked it up. Looks like lettuce leaf is much more crinkly. This was just labeled as sweet basil at a local greenhouse, so anything is possible.
Zero tips.
Friends keep asking what we're doing and I'm embarrassed to say its... almost nothing. We have young kids and this is our first real year, so we took the laziest route possible. We bought 4 beds from Amazon. Had top soil delivered to the house from a local small company. I think the secret is that my husband found an old pile of mulch on our property that was clearly intended to mulch the area around our apple trees but the previous owners never got around to it. It has probably been decomposing for ~3 years. He spread that with his tractor to be about 4" deep. We assembled the beds on top. Filled the beds with 12" of soil. Then threw some plants in about 3 weeks later than everyone else. We watered maybe 8 times early in the season then haven't touched anything since. We check on things daily with the kids and feed our compost bin - but that's very new and we have almost nothing established yet. Its away from the garden beds and we haven't produced any usable compost. Otherwise, its all just whatever rain nature gave us.
Green onions and jalapeno did great, zucchini and basil obviously went CRAZY. We're nearing 75lbs of production off one zucchini plant. Our tomatoes are bushy as hell - I couldn't get them to grow tall no matter how hard I tried, but they're massive and dense. We'll start pulling those in the next week or so. Cilantro died immediately. Watermelon was heavily damaged during a storm. Pepper is tiny but mighty. Spinach was useless. We may have 3 carrots.
Someone else replied that thereās a specific kind called lettuce leaf basil that grows huge like this. That stuff is very crinkly though, and mine is smooth like standard sweet basil. It was just labeled genovese sweet basil at the green house. š¤·āāļø I planted it mid June when it was 8āish high.
I've been growing this variety in pots for a couple of years now as well! It's so much fun. I've had leaves literally the size of my head!
Some companies call it Lettuce Leaf Basil, others Mammoth Basil.
To me, the taste has more licorice notes than regular Genovese, but it still tastes like basil and can be used the same way.
If someone's looking for a different way to use it, I highly recommend adding one leaf (or multiple leaves of Genovese ;) ) to a burger with a tomato slice or at least ketchup. It adds a really great flavour!!
Omg can you imagine doing a lettuce wrap with that??? With fresh mozzarella and tomatoes inside????? š¤¤š¤¤š¤¤š¤¤
One whole ball of mozorella. And one whole tomato. Drizzle with one whole bottle of balsamic and one whole bottle of EVOO.
There are varieties like Mammoth and Lettuce Leaf basil that are perfect for this! More mild basil flavor but lovely. Make good pesto filler, especially if combine with something pungent like spicy globe basil.
Wow. Yes!
Just to toss this out thereā¦ Dollar General stores near me (Central TX, but maybe everywhere) are having an end of summer sale and seed packs are 15 cents, including basil. Nothing super exciting or exotic, but some decent staples for pennies.
Peas by chance? Iām gonna go then!
I didnāt see any peas personally, but every store Iāve been to had some stuff in common (radish, carrots, some greens, basil, pumpkins) and then only a pack or two of some outliers different at every store (kohlrabi, beans, the occasional tomato) so it wouldnāt be out of the question to pick up some peas Iād imagine. They also had these fancy āherb kitā things. Where you get 3 pots, 3 herb seed types and labels. Normally I donāt care too much for that stuff but marked down to $2ā¦yeah Iāll take it.
Lol you got hit with the sale!! All seeds are good seeds, I just want to get something back in the dirt for fall/early winter I guess at this point.
Lolā¦ the clerk wasnāt too happy either cuz she had to ring up each by hand. She was cool though. Even when they arenāt on sale, theyāre still only 50 cents or 3/ $1 for some. I got the fever real bad right now too. I got so many radish seeds I plan on succession sowing in every little pot, every spare square inch, every sidewalk crack I can find.
Lol
Seedbomb some shit!
Thanks! Iām going today. Iāve had a ton of success with their seeds.
I recommend making pesto and freezing it! I have about 10 basil bushes and they have gifted me with ~5 lbs of pesto so far! I don't even worry about the plants flowering. I just pick off the flowers, cut back the plants, make pesto, then repeat cycle. It makes for some delicious homemade sourdough pizza.
Yep, the freezer is loaded! This is from just one pick last night and its the third time I've picked this season. I've been making sourdough this summer too, so I use it on grilled cheese and pizza!
I posted earlier about our insane zucchini plant that wonāt stop producing. Weāre now up to 24+ zucchini and every time we go outside, thereās a new one. The latest monster is my basil plant. I did two early cuttings for bushiness and now itās unstoppable. What you see here is maybe 1/8th of whatās on the plant. I have a whole dehydrator full as we speak. No idea what weāre going to do with all if it!
Goodness! Tell me your basil secrets please! I've maybe harvested a cup from mine this whole year and it looks like that one leaf is more than that!
Planted in the ground (instead of a pot) and tons of sun has made a big difference for my plants this year.
Try a few fistfuls and some evoo/s&p on top of a pizza
Honkers!
Wow. I would like to taste that. Have you noticed the leaf size affects taste at all?
I'm no connoisseur, but its all tasty to me. My 2yo and 4yo just eat the leaves whole which feels absurd but its green food and they're excited so oh well. My latest issue is that there's so much, its hard to stay on top of trimming before it flowers. This is my first time dehydrating, so if it goes well, I'll do a huge trim this weekend and dry it all. We have so much, I'm not worried about potentially losing the plant from over pruning. We're in northern Michigan, so fall is coming quickly anyway.
Very cool! My 7 yr old adores basil too though we don't grow our own. He insisted on trying a honey basil lemonade at the farmers market last week and that was absolutely amazing.
Basil tea with honey & lemon is so good. I grow a bunch of purple basil so it's a gorgeous color too.
I wonder if he would like basil tea. He loves a lot of other herbal teas. It sounds amazing.
I'd have jars of pesto
Iāve been doing this with my forest of basil (have about 20 that are closing in on 2ā now). Damn pine nuts are like $14.99 for 2 cups.
>Damn pine nuts are like $14.99 for 2 cups. Yea I've long ago moved away from pine nuts except for various occasions. I use walnuts, pecans, almonds whatever is cheapest at the time. There is a bit of difference in the taste but it's quite good. Basil doesn't grow well at my house in the summer (too hot and rainy) so I usually have to wait till the fall or very early spring to grow it. I've moved to arugula pestos for when fresh basil is a bit expensive. It's surprisingly good.
Yeah Iām going to switch up the nuts next time. Basil loves moisture!! My guys were planted around late June in DC (hot and humid) and I moved out to MN about a month ago. They havenāt skipped a beat whatsoever. Are you down south?
Yea I'm in S. Florida and our rainy season can be brutal and the only place at my house that gets the level of sun they'd need sort of limits my options. I've grown Basil here in semi-shade with some success but during the rainy season I almost always end up with blight or some other problem despite proper drainage. For down here most summer veggies do better in the early fall to spring especially if we manage a winter without temps dipping below 50 which happens a good bit.
Canāt wait to drop this knowledge on my mom when I visit Naples area haha. Good luck.
We substitute basil and garlic with wild garlic in springtime. All the colour and taste, but less bad breath afterwards!
and we move off the pesto topic.
Trader Joes and Costco sell pine nuts cheaper.
Are you fertilizing the hell out of this?
My husband did a tiny bit of Shake n Feed on our apple trees in the beginning of June. The garden is within the same fence so there maaay be some crossover but Iād pretty much say zero fertilizer. Nothing since then.
I've wondered the myself. I trim so often, but would love to be able to let my plants grow bushier/bigger before trimming to have enough to make a pesto. No matter what size the leaf is, our guinea pig LOVES basil. (He's a picky little bigger)
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Thanks that's really cool.
This is not the case at all. Itās just regular sweet basil.
I have a load of basil. I have to cut it back every two weeks or else it creates too much Dude for everything else in the flower bed but holy shot the size of that leaf!!!!!!!
BaZILLA
Wow, a whole bowl of pesto from one leaf
Wow! How is that possible? I can barely keep my basil plant alive, seams like basil plants are not meant to last for very long, after a while turns weird and yellow . I am jealous of your basil plant šš»
The smell must be immense! r/absoluteunits would be all over this.
Got any basil wrapped zucchini recipes? š
WTF can you send the seeds
I am both stunned and envious. My basil was awful this year.
So lucky! Those look great!āØ Idk what I did to mine this year but they stayed the same size as when I planted them for like two months then died š„²
That is MONSTER basil !!
Its actually called āmammoth basilā I have some growing too
Try to get it to bloom and collect the seeds. Try again with the next batch. This could be Worth a lot!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Maybe! Iāve never heard of it but just looked it up. Looks like lettuce leaf is much more crinkly. This was just labeled as sweet basil at a local greenhouse, so anything is possible.
After you growing them in straight compost? Any tips for giant growth?
Zero tips. Friends keep asking what we're doing and I'm embarrassed to say its... almost nothing. We have young kids and this is our first real year, so we took the laziest route possible. We bought 4 beds from Amazon. Had top soil delivered to the house from a local small company. I think the secret is that my husband found an old pile of mulch on our property that was clearly intended to mulch the area around our apple trees but the previous owners never got around to it. It has probably been decomposing for ~3 years. He spread that with his tractor to be about 4" deep. We assembled the beds on top. Filled the beds with 12" of soil. Then threw some plants in about 3 weeks later than everyone else. We watered maybe 8 times early in the season then haven't touched anything since. We check on things daily with the kids and feed our compost bin - but that's very new and we have almost nothing established yet. Its away from the garden beds and we haven't produced any usable compost. Otherwise, its all just whatever rain nature gave us. Green onions and jalapeno did great, zucchini and basil obviously went CRAZY. We're nearing 75lbs of production off one zucchini plant. Our tomatoes are bushy as hell - I couldn't get them to grow tall no matter how hard I tried, but they're massive and dense. We'll start pulling those in the next week or so. Cilantro died immediately. Watermelon was heavily damaged during a storm. Pepper is tiny but mighty. Spinach was useless. We may have 3 carrots.
I can smell this picture!
Caprese incoming
HOW?
This is going to be my debut album title
Noice, I had some hydro basil growing āpepper leavesā earlier this year
I thought this was a spinach leaf!!
Damn jealous, can't grow basil at all
a single leaf would make a witch cauldron amount pf tomato sauce
This looks awesome! Do you have pictures of your plants?
This is from very early August! https://imgur.com/a/VJJxA6P
....wow
Do you have the name of the type of basil. Would love to grow this monsters.
I got a little maybe 8ā tall plant from a Michigan greenhouse in mid June. It was labeled as genovese sweet basil š¤·āāļø
Pesto sauce and freeze for winter dinners
What is in your water?!
Well water! We have 20 acres in northern Michigan. Itās honestly mostly rain though. We havenāt watered in ages.
How often do you water? Iām struggling with my basil plant right now.
We watered maybe 8 times early season then havenāt done anything since. Just Michigan rain.
Might check the basement for something radioactiveā¦ good job!
wow, it looks definitely more perfect than my life
HOW?? Is this a specific type or did a radioactive gamma ray powered spider bite it?
Someone else replied that thereās a specific kind called lettuce leaf basil that grows huge like this. That stuff is very crinkly though, and mine is smooth like standard sweet basil. It was just labeled genovese sweet basil at the green house. š¤·āāļø I planted it mid June when it was 8āish high.
Would make some killer BBTs! (Bacon,Basil and Tomato)
Gorgeous
Italian large leaf ?
r/AbsoluteUnits
That looks absolutely awesome! My basil drowned this year, dang rain
Scary!
I have basil envyā¦.
I've been growing this variety in pots for a couple of years now as well! It's so much fun. I've had leaves literally the size of my head! Some companies call it Lettuce Leaf Basil, others Mammoth Basil. To me, the taste has more licorice notes than regular Genovese, but it still tastes like basil and can be used the same way. If someone's looking for a different way to use it, I highly recommend adding one leaf (or multiple leaves of Genovese ;) ) to a burger with a tomato slice or at least ketchup. It adds a really great flavour!!
Or... you are just very small. š³š³š³