Basil trouble

[Ariel301]

Over the last year I have purchased many basil plants to try to grow them. All of them die within a few days of getting them. I have bought them at greenhouses and also from grocery stores/Walmart. They look great in the pot at the store, and I bring them home and leave them in the original plastic pot a few days, watering them as needed. Then I transplant them into a different pot or into my garden and the leaves will start to turn crispy until basically the plant just dries up. I water them daily and provide them with light and try to keep them from getting too hot or too cold. What's going on? This happens regardless of whether they are potted and in the house or outside potted or in the ground.

 

[vfem]

I would say it sounds like they weren't hardened off correctly for sun exposure. Sounds like sun scorch... some larger plants recover... smaller ones not so much!?

 

[curly_kate]

I have never had any luck growing basil in the house - definitely not enough sun or warmth. I've never heard of this trouble in the garden.... :/

 

[Greenthumb18]

Yep, I think the reason their dying is because they weren't hardened off the right way. Maybe trying starting some basil from seed?

 

[HunkieDorie23]

Yep, I think the reason their dying is because they weren't hardened off the right way. Maybe trying starting some basil from seed?

Growing it from seed is extremely easy and from one who used to purchase the plants from walmart very cheap and you have a lot more variety. Walmart has one type, you probably have more choices at a nursery but the prices goes up as well.

 

[obsessed]

Basil should be pretty easy. I know it is a heat loving plant so it needs the heat and full sun. After I buy a few plants from the nursury I clip the tops and stick them in some water and they usually form roots that way I can get more plants out of just one.


I dont mean to confuse you but could too much water be a thing?

 

[lesa]

Grab some seeds- basil is easy to grow. I usually start some indoors and direct plant others. I put seed between my tomatoes, forget alll about it, and have beautiful basil right next to my tomatoes for easy harvest! I love basil. If I could only grow one thing- that would be it!!! Don't give up- fresh basil is too good to miss...

 

[patandchickens]

Remember that the plants you get at the store are usually exposed to little or no a) direct sunlight or b) wind. And transplanting them causes a certain inevitable degree of root shock, which makes them *extra* vulnerable to those things.

If you want to try again with storebought basil (although I agree it is quite easy to grow from seed, just takes a bit more lead time), may I suggest putting them directly into the garden (assuming soil is warm enough yet)... BUT cover each plant with a little pile of pine boughs and/or long meadowgrass and weeds and/or a gallon plastic pot with the bottom cut out. Any sort of arrangement like that, over each individual plant, so that it gets very little direct sunlight and no direct breeze. Over the next couple weeks, GRADUALLY remove the stuff on the plant (or if you've used a bottomless gallon pot, replace it after a week with some lesser arrangement), gradually removing stuff on the E/downwind side first, so that you are "tapering in" the sunlight and breeze. You can judge from the plant's appearance whether you're going too slow or too fast or whatever, but because it is incremental you can fix any incipient mistakes without killing the plant outright.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[Ariel301]

Thanks for the tips. I have some basil seed planted, but those big beautiful plants sitting in the store are hard to resist, so I keep getting them. I think sun exposure in the garden is probably a big problem for them, as well as being dried out by our high temperatures and shocked by the temperature swing we get here from daytime to night, since this is the desert. It's just that they die the same way inside the house too...oh well. I'm having a hard time getting my seeds to sprout this year because the house has an unstable temperature and no sunlight anywhere (I have to use grow lights to grow anything, the house designer made all the windows face the least sunny direction to keep the house cool--not good for plants though!) and outside they dry out too fast in the heat. But I have had more luck in the past with basil from seed than buying plants. Hopefully some will get going, I've got about two dozen pots of basil seed planted!