Basil, found to be greatly used in Southeast Asian as well as Italian cuisines, is a culinary herb. Native to Iran, India and other tropical regions of Asia, the herb has been in use for more than 5000 years. It belongs to Family Lamiaceae and comprises of a number of varieties within itself, with sweet basil, Thai basil, lemon basil and holy basil being the most common ones. The best part of the herb is that it can be easily grown at home, without much fuss and effort. If you have basil plant at your home and want to know how to pick its leaves, the tips given below will prove to be useful.
Picking Basil
- You can pick individual leaves of basil whenever you want to use them, throughout the growing season.
- If you want to pick entire branches of basil, then the right time would be just before the plant blooms.
- The best time, in the day, for picking basil is in the morning, after the dew has dried. However, make sure that you do not end up waiting so much that the sun's heat robs the leaves of all their essential oils.
- Whenever you want to pick basil leaves, off the plant, pinch the leaves from the stem.
Tips
- The more often you pick the leaves of basil, the more and the better will the plant grow.
- At a time, you can pick as much as half of the leaves on the basil plant, as long as you fertilize it immediately afterwards.
