I watched a few similar videos but I love yours the most. I appreciated your concept of showing us the ”entire journey” from buying basil from a supermarket to giving us options on how to grow then to harvesting. Thank you for the straightforward but very informative video!
I concur with Cool Skater! Most vids just show them sticking a plant in a jar if water or dirt and thats it. You show us your entire journey and your success and failures. I can appreciate and empathize. I am really enjoying your channel. Its giving me hope to restart my gardening hobby I gave up for health reasons. I like your simplicity in using Kratky . I'm gonna start raiding recycling bins for pasta sauce jars! 😆
What it didn’t show was the first weeks where the cuttings were placed in water to grow roots…most people’s water will turn green and slimy if the water isn’t changed frequently. Unless I missed it, it wasn’t mentioned if the water was swapped out.
UPDATE - I used this method and added honey, I see tiny roots now in less than 2 weeks! The ones without honey are slightly behind but still going good. Watched quite a few, I love how you explain the odd doubts people might have. I was thinking huh, I wonder how long the basil was in the market and you answer it in the next second. I feel confident in my approach now, I'm going to try this method. Thank you!
I got 4 roots out of a bag from the supermarket. Put them in water and got a really goot amount of roots. Now potted in soil and in the greenhouse. Seem to be doing ok. Will prune next week. Cheers
@@JimmyBHarvests Some are doing ok but got a touch of brown leaves. They're in a plastic grow house and the temperature in UK has been up and down. Might have to make a space indoors..away from destructive cats
it's incredible that the cut area has the ability to start growing roots out of no where, even though it's been established as a support to hold up the leaves. I was wondering how it was able to change just like that, but then I realized... it's because they're stem cells
Would you be able to create a version of this excellent video specifically showcasing adjustments for Southeast-facing balconies to optimize plant growth, or perhaps even provide special instructions for this case?
the honey - basically yes it will work to increase rooting a bit, but its creating an additional risk of contamination/rot by adding such pure carbohydrate. As soon as it hits the water, the honey starts to dilute and loses all its anti-microbial properties. It only really works because honey exists in a state of super-saturation, essentially meaning normally it would not be able to remain fluid at such high concentrations of sugar, it would normally begin to crystallize and fall out of solution. Because its able to stay a fluid, it actually can draw water out of cells of microbes which kills them, as well as has a few anti-microbial enzymes which again are diluted out completely in such small concentrations on the stem. functionally speaking, basil is very resilient and can be vigorous enough to combat contams effectively. But all I'm saying is that its an added risk for some easy root hormone, when in fact they probably would root just as well or only slightly worse without the added contamination vector. A thing of rooting hormone lasts a while and is pretty cheap anyway, and doesn't have the carbs contams love
It’s not always necessary to change the water, but it’ll never be bad for the plant if you do change the water. I typically don’t change the water, but do watch it and add more to it as it evaporates away. Good luck with your plants!
i had nice roots coming from my basil cuttings, but when i planted them in soil, they all died. any tips? these cuttings are quite short BTW, about 2+ inches (that's how they are in the packaged basil i got from the supermarket). thank you
When light gets into a hydroponic reservoir (water + nutrients), algae typically starts to grow. It hurt the plant too much, but it does use up nutrients/oxygen from the water that your plant could otherwise use. A coat of paint or some tinfoil puts an end to algae starting. Best of luck trying your own plants!
@tarot33 dont use white paint... it will still let light through.. use something like aluminum foil or darker paint or better yest a pot with soil in it which will block the light 10x better, but the rest of what he said is accurate.
@@jackkushner8026 Thanks Jack! I bought a bunch of Mason jars and had already painted some them white. I noticed light still goes thru the paint. I might try painting the rest with black chalk paint.
I just ran into my kitchen and did this with my thai basil, about 4 days ago I started lemongrass and it's already sprouting and it was really old and brown. 👍 let's see what happens!
Hi, do the water in the reservoirs dry out, and if they do, how do you refill them? Would refilling them to the bottom of the net cup "drown" the basil?
I check the jars every few days to assess the water levels. As it gets low, i add more. Best to always leave an inch or so of roots exposed to the air to avoid suffocating the plant. I havent much trouble doing that. Some sources say to only have 33% of the roots submerged.. i probably do 75%.. seems fine to me so far
Mostly just top it up. Full change every 2-3 weeks maybe. Depends on the plant, how big it is, reservoir size, etc. with basil in a jar like this i just top it up every couple days
Should I use a food safe soil or can I use any potting soil? I have a large back of plant potting soil but I’m not sure do you need food safe soil or is all soil safe for herbs?
Can you plant them outside or in a pot after your get the roots about an inch or more long? Or do you still wanna keep in the jar of water for 5+weeks?
I’ve cloned probably 10-15 of these cuttings and haven’t had any issue. They grow roots pretty quickly and shouldn’t have to stay in the water too long
QUESTION: Where did the jars you painted white come from? Probably from Amazon, but do you have a link to those exact ones so that I know the net cups I buy will fit?
I use jars that I come across from my groceries- pasta sauce jars mostly. Then I spray paint the outsides. I'd recommend getting these net cups: bit.ly/netCUPS I've tried a bunch, and these CZ heavy duties have the widest upper brim that I have encountered. This gives you flexibility to fit an array of jars. Net cups with thinner rims have less room for error.
@@JimmyBHarvests Nice! My neighbour has bees, and my current batch of clones will be done and out of the cloner on Wednesday. I’ll try honey in the machine, and also try it in peat pucks, and jars.
I did this with store-bought basil and cut and them put in water like yours, but in a day or two, the leaves start to wilt and get mushy or dry out... any ideas what I could be doing wrong?
I'd question your water source/quality.. maybe try some bottled or distilled water if possible. Could also be that the basil wasn't very fresh. Best of luck
I don't know about the others experience, but in my case when I grew something in water (like ginger, I actually never tried basil, I'm going to do it right now) I replenish aprox once a week and change it completely almost once a month or so (or once fortnightly in summer -we can get to 45ºC here-), just when I see water is getting a bit cloudy. If you find it begins to smell, by all means change it! I hope this helps.
It is dissgusting how much plastic they use to sell a few leafs. Also I just put some seeds in a garden soil and after three weeks I have a forest of naturaly growned basil .
@@JimmyBHarvests 2 months in and I nearly killed the plants half a dozen times lol, but they're still growing despite my not watering, accidentally dropping LED light on top of them, and spilling half the freshly sprouted plants over my windowsill
WOW, this is a very slow way to grow basil, filled with risks along the way. Dude, a pack of seeds is the same price and you get 100, a foot tall and ready to harvest, in 5 weeks. Just saying. I guess if you like to tinker. My experience, if you mess with Basil too much, it will die. It has to be pretty big and healthy before you go cutting on it.
False economy here! Buy a packet of basil seeds for 1/4 the price of that “store bought” basil and grow all you want without the hassle doing it the hard way!
The reason the plants look unhappy i because is for the same reason why you wouldn't be very excited if you had to stand in the bathtub 24/7. Grow in organic soil where microbes and living soils food web allow the plant to thrive the same way plants have since way before any one of us came along and rather than learning from how they have evolved to be, let our egos lead us to think we, the powerful super smart humans, could teach them how to do it better... Saldly you could tell us something 1000 times, have a few more dust bowls, kill a few more pastures, till, till and then till again until there's nothing left to be tilled and we will still think we have the newest greatest trick up our selves that's gonna save our asses rather than just taking our foot off the gas, listening to nature and letting someone or something else take control for a little.. I know, im dreaming, $$$ always wins, well, at least in my little plot of land, where i live, it doesn't and maybe if you do the same with yours, we can add them together, and maybe mike, and whoever else will join too so little by little we can actually make a difference rather than staring gout the window at a concrete patio as we fill jars with over-chlorinated water and synthetic nutrients under the newest led light system thinking we are growing healthy food for ourselves or solving anything. sorry, rant over lol
Sunlight is the real thing so it's always going to be best! Artificial light seems to work great too. Whatever you cant get with sun due to your season/location, you can supplement with artificial light
