basil growing trial

Basil from Mitre 10

After a disastrous basil growing season last year, I decided to conduct a basil growing trial this year in search of the best varieties.  In my experiment, I’m growing most of the varieties from seed and have purchased seedlings too, as a contingency incase the ones sown from seed don’t grow, like last year.  In all, I’ve sown 12 different varieties and I purchased two different kinds of basil. I’m growing all of my basil in round terracotta plastic bowls as I have done in previous years with success.  I’ve used Dalton’s Potting Mix from Bunnings as my growing medium and no other fertilisers.

Without further ado, I’m pleased to announce that I’m growing the following varieties:

• X5 punnets of basil from Mitre 10
• X10 punnets of Sweet Genovese basil from Kings Plant Barn
• Italiano Classico from Franchi (distributed by Italian Seeds Pronto in New Zealand, very kindly given to me by Gillian Hurley-Gordon)
• Napoletano from Franchi (very kindly given to me by Gillian Hurley-Gordon of Italian Seeds Pronto)
• Emerald Towers from Egmont Seeds
• San Remo from Egmont Seeds
• Sweet Genovese from Egmont Seeds
• Sweet large from Egmont Seeds
• Sweet (seed tape) from Egmont Seeds
• Fino Verde from Kings Seeds
• Gecofure from Kings Seeds
• Genovese Giant from Kings Seeds
• Lettuce Leaf from Kings Seeds
• Sweet Genovese from Kings Seeds

I will be reporting back regularly in the growing season to update on the progress of these different varieties.

If all of these varieties thrive, I’m going to have an overload of basil!  Probably our favourite way to use basil is chopped up and sprinkled over tomatoes, drizzled with olive oil, salt and pepper, closely followed by pesto.  We enjoy pesto in the following ways:

• As a pasta sauce
• As a base on pizza, as they do in Northern Italy
• On top of salmon, as was once served in a restaurant we dined at

 
Pesto can be prepared and frozen for de-frosting when you need it later on.

​One of our favourite salads using basil contains tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella and basil leaves.
Basil can also be served with Thai green chicken curry.