supermarket growing basil - do i repot?

butterfly72

I've bought a large growing basil plant from the supermarket. I'd like to keep it going and wondered how! Can I put it outside as it is or should I separate it out a bit into a larger pot. How much space do I need between stems? (I do seperate it out into stems right? ) I only have a patio so its containers only I'm afraid!!

thanks!

Farway

I have done this, I chose the easy option and just split it into halves, perhaps could be quartered?

IMO by going for individual stems you would be damaging a lot of roots, stressing the plant & encouraging it to bolt [run to seed]

Plants bolt for many reasons, the main one is they think they are dying, and need to provide progeny

They bolt readily any way, so reducing the stress is worthwhile

If you want to experiment, spilt half, and plant whole, then spilit the other half into indivudual stems, do let us know how it works out

PS outside is fine this time of year, stems distance apart, maybe 3 to 6 inches

G-G_4

I thought the title said..

'Supermarket growing Basil, do I report!' :laugh:

jiblets1

My dad's words of wisdom on this are that you can keep the basil going much longer if you don't over-water it. He says wait until the leaves look quite wilted before you water and it lasts much longer. hth.

make_life_easier

I have bought a basil plant today and I'm using half of it to make pork meatballs for tea tonight. I was just going to leave it in the pot it was bought in and hopefully it will grow back - has anyone tried it.

ps. can anyone point me to a post on making meatballs:beer:

ExiledWool

make_life_easier wrote: »

I have bought a basil plant today and I'm using half of it to make pork meatballs for tea tonight. I was just going to leave it in the pot it was bought in and hopefully it will grow back - has anyone tried it.

ps. can anyone point me to a post on making meatballs:beer:

Have a look on UKTV Food website

olly300

make_life_easier wrote: »

I have bought a basil plant today and I'm using half of it to make pork meatballs for tea tonight. I was just going to leave it in the pot it was bought in and hopefully it will grow back - has anyone tried it.

It depends how much basil the supermarket has put in the pot. Most supermarkets put as much as they can fit in so even if you use a lot of it can still die off due to over crowding.

I went to lidl the other day and brought some chives. I then popped into B&Q the next day and had a look at their plants. They had 1/8 of the amount of chives growing in the same size pot for nearly 3 times the price labelled as for your herb garden.

Gingernutmeg

I've split supermarket basil (from lidl) into four and grown it on on my kitchen windowsill. It grew REALLY well and I had an absolute forest of basil lol. I think Rose Prince in the 'New English Kitchen' suggests splitting it into up to ten clumps and growing it on. I don't tend to put basil outside (I'm from the Peak District lol, it'd never grow outside there ) but I've never had a problem with growing it on a sunny windowsill.

jaquivander

being a Yorkshire lass, I know how to get my money's worth from Asda!
I bought one pot of cooking herb basil from Asda, potted it up in a bigger pot (didn't disturb the roots, they're really sulky little .....s) with some miracle grow compost (great stuff for veggies !) and took cuttings from the top of each growing shoot, dipped em in root hormone powder ( really cheap , lasts ages) and poked 3-4 them in a small seperate pot.
Maybe 2-3 of each takes each time. Keep on doing it every time more have developed.
So far have sold 20 of the plants at 50p each... nice profit eh?

let's get some back from the supermarkets!!

Primrose

You can repot into a bigger pot or tear the clump into two and repot each of the two halves separately.
You can also keep your basil going indefinitely by snipping off the top three inches of a few stalks and keeping them in a small amount of water for about 5 days. You will see lots of small new white roots forming. Once they reach this stage repot them in a pot of fresh compost. Much cheaper than buying new pots from the supermarket everytime your basil starts flowering and loses its energy.

Trembling_Turnip

Some great tips here!

I got so fed up with my supermarket herbs dying on me I tried to grow some basil, rosemary and parsley from seed this year, but only one basil plant survived, although mysteriously I now have a parsley plant blooming from my geranium window box - not sure how it ended up in there *scratches head*

Bought a Tesco basil pot last week and I've tried splitting it into two pots so fingers crossed....!

Any thoughts on the best place to put the plants inside?