A gardener has shared the simple method for growing unlimited amounts of basil in her garden, and she only spends a few pounds in the supermarket. Basil is one of the most popular herbs for Brits to grow at home. Not only is it a delicious ingredient to add to a slew of recipes, including pasta and pizza, but it is also an amazing pest deterrent and can even improve the taste of tomatoes when it grows beside them.
If you want to grow "unlimited" amounts of basil yourself instead of buying it from the supermarket, then there is a simple method you can follow. In a viral video that received more than 14,000 likes on TikTok, one gardener shared her easy step-by-step guide for how she grows and propagates huge amounts of basil to supply her family for "an entire year". TikTok user Louise's Kitchen Garden says that the easiest way to start is by buying a few pots of basil from your local supermarket.
"Break them up gently so you have a few stems per chunk," she advises. "Plant them into your garden in toughs or pots or as a companion plant for tomatoes.
"You can then prune them to make the plants become bushier. Then take the prunings and set them in water for a few weeks, and roots will grow. This is called water propagation, and it's very easy."
To get best results, you want to make sure the stems aren't too long because the end dies off and rots. Additionally, you don't want stems where flowers are forming because the plant diverst energy from the stem to the flowers.
Following that, she fills a shallow dish with tap water and covers it with clingfilm, poking holes into it and inserting the stems. In a few weeks, you should start to see roots, which is when you can take them from the dish and plant them in soil.
TikTok users were impressed with the method, with one person writing: "I have a little propagating vase but the cling film tip is a game changer!"
Another said: "I've just done this with tomato, side shoots into a jar of water for a week and roots appear."
A third said: "We hate basil for some reason in our family, but we do this for lots of the supermarket herbs with great success."
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