DIY basil at home

I learnt that you could plant your own herbs at home. One of the easiest herbs to plant is basil.

My lemon basil grew flowers last November. How lovely to see the little purplish flowers sprouting out. But then again you would notice the leaves started to fall off but that is normal.

Once the flowers dried out, I trimmed off the stems and peel off the dried pods to collect the seeds.

It is very easy to germinate basil seed. Some told me to sun dry the seeds first but I didn't.

Look at how many seeds I collected.  These seeds were from one flower pod. I have so many dried flowers that I trimmed some and gave away to few friends.!

Basil strives well in tropics countries such as ours. So you basically have no problem planting it here. 

I used a small pot to germinate the plant before transferring them to bigger pots once they grow taller.

Okay, here was what I did to grow my basil from seeds.

Just add some moist compost in the pot. Add few seeds (4 - 5 seeds), depends on how big your pot is. Add a bit of soil on top to cover the seed (about 1cm in height). Lightly water it and leave outdoor where it could catch some sun yet shady.

Water it at least once a day to keep the soil moist.

Little sprout

After 4th day, there was something growing in my pot!

Another pot of sprouts

After 2 weeks

After 3 weeks from baby to young basil

And I did tried growing from cuttings of my cinnamon basil and guess what! The cuttings survived and few days ago, I noticed some small roots growing from the cuttings. *yeah, jumping with joy*

Soon, I would be able to plant them in soil.

The other night, I made a simple basil dressing for my grilled fish.

1/2 cup fresh basil (I used lemon basil as I simply love it)
4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 tsp lemon juice
1 garlic clove
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper

Just mix everything into the food processor. Pulse till finely chopped.

Check out my grilled chicken thigh with basil dressing recipe too.