Late summer is Basil time around my house. After growing all summer in my veggie garden, it is full and bushy, even though I am harvesting it regularly. Heat and sun loving, this summer has been both, and the Basil this year is loving it! The hydroponic stuff you buy in the grocery store doesn’t compare with sun warmed fresh cut Basil from the garden.

How to Grow

One of the most important things to remember about basil is it likes heat, the more the better. Any sign of a a cold nip in the air, basil will wilt and turn black. I start mine from seed in a warm greenhouse early, around March, as it is slow to germinate and get going. The transplants go into the ground once the weather settles here in Maryland in early May, but wait until the nights are warm, no lower than 50 degrees Fahrenheit, or you will have a bunch of dead basil. 

It takes a few weeks in the ground and then it gets going. For sweet basil, I trim off any flower buds that appear by nipping them off with my fingers as the flavor could suffer. You can use these flower tips as garnish for a salad. For other basils, like African Blue, Thai, or Cinnamon, I like it to flower and use the flower stalks flor flower arranging or as salad garnishes.

Downy Mildew Problems

Basil has become a little more difficult to grow in the mid-Atlantic region. Normally a cinch to grow, Basil has been plagued by fatal downy mildew, which makes it unsightly and unusable.

Appearing in the last couple of years, downy Mildew is sweeping through the country like wildfire. It starts with leaf yellowing, which looks like a nutritional deficiency and then spots appear and can make the entire plant inedible. Under the right weather conditions (wet, warm weather), Basil downy mildew can spread rapidly and result in complete loss of all your Basil plants. Although Peronospora belbahrii, the pathogen that causes Basil downy mildew, cannot survive our mid-Atlantic winters, it can be reintroduced on infected seed or transplants or by windblown spores. So, it is here to stay.

Disfiguring my Basil plants by late spring/early summer, I despaired of growing this stalwart of my kitchen for pesto ever again. But with this summer having a  long spell of drought and heat, it has escaped this scourge. Something good came of our drought!

Try Resistant Amazel Basil

I was delighted to find a new cultivar of Basil called Amazel, a game changing plant, which is resistant to Downy Mildew. Amazel is a hunky vigorous plant  and I always grow this variety now – Amazel Basil from Proven Winners.

Amazel has excellent resistance to Downy Mildew, which will keep plants growing and producing for home gardeners throughout the entire season. Unlike typical Basil, Amazel is seed sterile and therefore continues to produce leaves and shoots even after starting to flower unlike other Basil varieties that focus most or all of their energy into seed production. The foliage is larger than other basils and more succulent.

Varieties of Basil

So many varieties to try and not enough room to grow them! There are at least 50 – 150 varieties of basil and since they are good at cross pollination, new ones are always popping up. Here is a very abbreviated list of varieties:

• Lettuce Leaf Basil
• Dark Opal Basil
• Lemon Basil
• Licorice Basil
• Cinnamon Basil
• French Basil
• American Basil
• Egyptian Basil
• Bush Basil
• Thai Basil
• Red Basil
• Genovese Basil
• Magical Michael Basil
• Holy Basil
• Nufar Basil
• Purple Ruffles Basil
• Red Rubin Basil
• Siam Queen Basil
• Spicy Globe Basil
• Sweet Dani Basil
• Amethyst Improved Basil
• Mrs. Burns’ Lemon Basil
• Pistou Basil
• Lime Basil
• Napoletano Basil
• Serata Basil
• Blue Spice Basil
• Osmin Purple Basil
• Fino Verde Basil
• Marseille Basil
• Minette Basil
• Queen Of Sheba Basil
• Greek Basil
• African Blue Basil

Super Food

Basil is an excellent source of vitamin K and manganese, copper, vitamin A (in the form of carotenoids such as beta-carotene), and vitamin C; and a good source of calcium, iron, folate, magnesium and omega-3 fatty acids. I had no idea this tasty herb was so good for you! I started using it in every summer dish that I made either in the form of pesto or fresh chopped leaves.

Pesto Recipe

For simple Pesto to use up all that extra basil:

Place in your food processor or blender, 1/4 cup olive oil,  1/4 cup toasted pine nuts or walnuts, 1 clove of garlic, chopped coarsely, 2 T lemon juice,  2 cups of basil leaves, and 1 cup of parsley, chopped coarsely. Pack all this into the food processor, by stuffing it down.

Blend well, stirring large bits back into the mixture and re-blending as needed. Transfer the mixture into a bowl and stir in 1/4 cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese.  Add a sprinkling of grated black pepper.

And sit back and enjoy this concoction on your pasta or my favorite- grilled salmon ! Really, any food would benefit from some pesto, especially pasta. You can keep this in the fridge with a layer of olive oil on top for a couple of weeks or freeze it. I freeze it in ice-cube containers or baggies for ease of removing throughout the winter.

Here is the recipe: