Stop Killing Your Store Bought Basil 

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A lil tip for dividing without damaging as much of the roots is to soak them in water before pulling apart!

I can relate to that basil plant. Some of us just like our space

I did this last spring and am still enjoying basil 10 months later

My friend has a business growing Basil pots for supermarkets, they basically just want to give you plentiful young fresh Basil to provide you with several meals. It's really not intended to grow as such, just be that bit fresher than dried basil in bags. Just thought I'd explain why the growers pack too many in to one pot, it's for your benefit not gardening. But it's pretty obvious, really! Love this video, I grow my own basil and mint from seed, cut the tops and grow them on in water, they are so easy. I love fresh herbs! ♥ Great video.

The actual instructions begin at 3 mins 40 secs. Great facial expressions! Thank you for this very helpful video.

A very experienced japanese lady tought me to always cut with scissors the top of the plant, in order to not allow it to grow tall but thicker.

I gently swish the root ball in a bucket of water letting the water rinse out the soil between the roots and relaxing the entanglement. They untangle and separate more easily. Works great for large root balls of perennials that you need to divide in the garden. a hose with low stream of water, wriggling the stems and they'll pull apart with minimal tearing.

If you plant the seedlings next to tomato plants, you will have less aphids. They love growing together.❤

Basil is often sold in seed-starting mixes. Seed-starting mix is not soil. It is a sterile medium used for, you guessed it, starting seeds. As well as the plants being overcrowded, they are no longer getting liquid plant food to keep them alive. As the video demonstrated, repotting in nutrient-rich potting soil with more space is the way to go. PS: Provide your plants with plenty of airflow.

I know that the plants need to have their own space but after living together I'd think they would appreciate being placed nearby their siblings after separation so that they can occasionally say hello to each other.

I used to divide store bought basil like you do, but it does not give me optimal results, as it sets the plants back too much. It is better to just take cuttings. Instead of dividing I immediately re-pot the store bought basil in a new larger container without dividing, water with nutrient added to the water and place where there is a lot of light. After about a week, when the leaves have a more healthy dark color, I top all the plants but leave at least one or two pairs of leaves on each plant. The cuttings are put into water, and after about a week each cutting can be planted in it's own pot. The original store bought plants will each make two new shoots for each cut, which can be cut the same way about three weeks later. I also cut the top of the cuttings I put into new pots when they start growing to make them do more shoots and grow more bushy. As I have done for years I bought one basil in the supermarket at the end of February. Right now I have more than two dozen healthy plants in pots and about a dozen in water developing roots. They will go out into my garden in about 6 weeks when there is no more frost, and by the end of the season I expect to have harvested about 6-7 pounds of fresh basil. All from a single store bought pot of basil. When out in the garden you have to harvest a lot all the time to make sure the plants do not begin to flower.

an 80y old gardener gave me the best tips. --Remove the pot and check the root ball on all seedlings and plants before you buy -- Buy the youngest healthy seedlings before they become big and root bound. They will be less disturbed when re-potting and recover much faster. -- Once a young plants growth is checked (root disturbance, water, light, temperature, wind ) it will never reach its full potential. Stephen from Kopu New Zealand

I have just been given a store bought basil plant and your video has come just in time to rescue it from impending doom 😅

I got a basil plant from the store the other week and wanted to propagate the strongest contenders in water. Yesterday while checking why they were looking terrible I noticed spidermites…needless to say I threw everything away and thanked the stars I didn’t sit it next to the rest of my collection.

Used to work in a glasshouse that grew these. Some of the thyme pots had 70 seeds in them. All done by machines really took the fun out of growing. Also lots of fungus gnats and spiders!

This was just the video I needed . Can’t count how many pots of supermarket basil I have bought over the years and they just wilted . New subscriber here from Canada ❤

You can probably plant them a bit deeper than that, particularly since they've had their original root system quite badly compromised. Basil will root from the stems if they're set a little lower in the soil, a bit like tomatoes.

Excellent Basil rescue service thank you!

Crowding the pots is just part of the problem, and they definitely need to be potted up after we bring them home from the supermarket. But root crowding isn't the only reason why all of the basil flags and fails at once: It's often actually caused by bacterial or fungal infestations that get into the plants. One of the most common is Fusarium Wilt, caused by fungus that invade the basil plant, blocking its vascular system (the "plumbing" that delivers water and nutrients from the roots to the stems and leaves). Fusarium spores (the "seeds" of the fungus) can be in the growing mix the plants come in, or introduced after purchase. If your basil wilts all at once, despite still having adequate root space and moisture, it's probably Fusarium wilt!

I could not get here fast enough to see WHY, oh WHY, oh WHY about the basil plants! 😂. Thank you so much love, much apppreciated!!!

I sent this to my mom. She brought home a grocery store basil plant and it wilted within hours of bringing it home. She does not have kitchen window, so she placed it under a bright light on her counter top. Hopefully she finds this video helpful and get her a proper grow lamp.

I love how your basil pots say "put it in your pasta!" as if you were buying it for decoration.

There's the root crowding issue, but not only this, the fine-grained compost or fine-grained coir holds onto water for too long, meaning that rootzone oxygen gets depleted pretty quickly, and the basil often succumbs to root rot and stem rot (from my own experience). If you carefully tease apart the basil (or, if you wish, you can instead snip off each stem with scissors and re-root as individual cuttings in a jar of fresh water, or in moist perlite, or an aeroponics/hydroponics cloner) then pot-up individually in a mix containing a large excess of coarse perlite and perhaps some coarse sand or potting grit, the root rot and stem rot no longer occurs. Peat, which has been sitting in an acidic bogland for many years, gets acted on by bacteria and fungi more slowly than fine compost or fine coir, so it lasts longer and does not encourage bacterial or fungal overgrowth that can go on to attack living root tissue under certain conditions (stagnant, waterlogged, anaerobic conditions). Be sure to add a large excess of coarse perlite for optimum root oxygenation.

I use seeds, no special requirements, follow package directions, most economical way to grow. The grow like hell in warm weather, be ready to use frequently and/or make a batch of pesto. Pesto may be frozen.

I kept a plant like this for several months, on my sunny kitchen windowsill. The key is to give it plenty of water and FEED it. I started with BabyBio and then went on to Growmore. This is basically hydroponic gardening. I harvested leaves every so often as required. It's best to cut each stem down to about halfway. The plant will produce new shoots soon after cutting and grow stronger. Don't let it run to flowering. I didn't have to buy another for months and had plenty of Basil. Even blended some up with olive oil and froze it in ice-cube bags.

This applies to ALL store bought herbs! Also, once they have established in their new individual pots, they can be transferred to a warm sunny & sheltered spot in your boarders, they prefer to be out in the natural environment. But only in the summer in the UK

Love the comment Basil loves the single life

The most productive basil I had came from the grocery store. I have a medium sized planter that sits by the steps to my front porch, I mixed the soil with blood meal, and transplanted 5 of the store bought groups into that, and had two foot high basil plants the whole season right up to the freezing weather. That was the supply for all of my cooking, including a lot of Thai and Vietnamese food

I often send your video to my 16 year old granddaughter, who is interested in indoor plants because she is in cold Minnesota, USA. You make fun easy to understand videos! Thank you!

So I had a bunch of murderers in that pot on my kitchen table, I thought the darn thing froze on the way here. I have two guys still standing but they don't look too good. They'll probably end up having a dual

There were more than 20 plants in the wee container a neighbor kindly gave me. Thanks to you, we’ll have many more plants to share!

I think I’ve said this before…Do you have a camera in my house? I think you just know your audience very well! 😆 My grocery store basil lasted about a month or so before it finally gave up! I can’t wait to try this now! Thanks!

I grow herbs aquaponically in my fish tank, naturally I don't want soil floating around with the fish so I rinse it all out wit tepid water then use cindered clay balls in the plants with just enough in the water to feed. Rinsing the dirt out of the roots lets you break up the plants with minimal damage to the root system, stronger plants mean they recover faster and start producing that much quicker

I tend to always pot on my basil plants and end up sharing with friends.

Thank you for doing this video. This happens to me all the time, I was wondering what I was doing wrong, it drove me crazy. I will definitely follow your advice and seperate the plants and whatever I don’t pot up I’ll use for margherita pizza.🍕

Oh my gosh! I thought it was just that I couldn't grow these grocery store plants! Thank you for explaining what I was doing wrong! I'll try yet again....

This video is so timely, I have a basil plant that I've successfully been keeping alive for a couple of months now, but I was worrying it wouldn't last much longer. I'll try these techniques!

Thank you for informing people how plants work. They have bought 6 or 8 baby plants and don't know how to raise them - it's a bit like the care of children in modern societies, keeping them inside watchin watching, with out suprevision, TV or the internet- no personal imagining, running or playing. Sort of sad really. I never once was puzzled about replanting young plants into their own pot, but I grew up in different times - people simply don't know much anymore even though such information, about pretty much EVERYTHING in on the amazing internet - and here you are! The internet is like a great reference library, but most seem to be drawn to the Smut, Gossip and Rubbish Section instead. Regards, happy re-planting.

Why did I get to that conclusion by myself ?? Genius ! Thank you. I stopped buying basil and now I'm excited for my next grocery trip

😂😂🙌🙌🙌 I have lost HUNDREDS of these grocery store basil plants!!!!! THANK you!!!

I recently started raising a bunch of herbs and veggies from seed in Perlite. Kinda eliminates the water/ nutrient fight ^^ keeps everything more space efficient

I LOVE this vid, it's so true. An 8-inch deep pot, make sure it's one plant ... and what a glorious plant it can be! Needs all the sunlight you can give it in the northern climate (in eastern Canada; same climate as yours). I've not watched a lot lately, and catching up. As usual, you do not disappoint. Love & light, Mr. Sheffield, from Nova Scotia. xx

I realised this fact last year after repeated losses of my herb plants from Walmart. So glad you're sharing the info here for others having this problem! 🤗👍💖

I guessed what the problem was before I started watching, then I was second guessing myself as I started watching because I thought I was wrong about the problem... Only to get past the ad and learn I was right to begin with 🤣

Fantastic! I have a green thumb and was depressed I lost my basil more than once. Thank you!

Thank you for this! Everyone kept telling me how low maintenance basil plants were, and yet I found myself extremely annoyed by how “thirsty” my store bought basil plant was. If I skipped watering it for a day the leaves would immediately start drooping and I just didn’t understand why it was so high maintenance. Now I finally understand I was actually watering 10 plants at once :/

I also have the same problems with basil and mint.

I've found that when separating roots from multiple plants in a small container, it's easier if you wash the existing soil off with water. I also use a sand-compost mix for seed-starting/potting soil mix and it's better than anything I've ever purchased from the store, BUT, it needs to be high quality compost and if you use beach sand, you must wash all the salt out of it. (I'm far away from the ocean in the desert, so that's not an issue for me.) When I say high quality compost, I mean compost that got up to between 131f-160f/55C-71C during the initial composting process and is biologically active. I get mushrooms in my seed starting trays, and what I'm getting there is beneficial to the plants. The bacteria from the compost are also beneficial. When I put the plants into the ground, that goes with them.

Good advice. Basil grows from seed very easily too.

So after doing basil non stop with seeds and mad lot of propagations I will add that you can absolutely increase the soil line upwards with basil. Basil is easy, waiting when you first start to not eat it all is the hard part. Also, when you have so many basil leaves harvested and dont want to waste them (topping to prevent bolting/flowering), you can freeze them without issue. Just rinse the leaves with cold water and bag and freeze the leaves for a treat any time you want them and they last in the freezer for months!

I divided my store bought basil last year, and it was practically coming out my ears all summer. Plus, paired with tomato plants, it kept ugly tomato worms away. Now, if I could learn how to keep rosemary plants alive, I'd be super happy.

I put mine in a new large pot. That dang thing blew up into a huge plant and I couldn't keep up with the Basil. I was giving it away. Making pesto. Also dried out a bunch and made seasoning.

My basil always survived around a couple of months. 😊 I was doing almost everything right intuitively, great tips as always. 👍🏻

I can't believe I'm just learning this now. Thank you! I bought a basil plant, took your advice, and now I have a dozen beautiful plants weeks later. I have too much actually and will be giving some away of them. Amazing!

Lol. Poor baby needs repotting. What a great load of basil you get with 10 stems! I love lemon basil best.🎉❤

We don't get that many stems with our grocery store basil, but it still does the same thing. Even after transplantation. Plus, a decade ago I got an infestion of little flying midge-y things in my house that came in on some Miracle-Gro soil and I have never been able to rid my home of them no matter what I have tried. I finally gave up.

I always wondered why the basil plant I brought home from the grocery store always withered up and died in a short period of time. Didn't know what I was doing wrong and thank you so much for this video.

Yeah, I did that. Still no plant survived. I'm trying to grow from seeds this year.

I've always wondered this too. I thought it was because they didn't get enough light in my kitchen window. I ended up getting hydroponics system instead. Now my basil is going nuts, and I can't use it fast enough. When friends and family visit, they call it a jungle. 🥰🌱

Very helpful. Makes so much sense.

Thanks! My supermarket-bought basil kept dying last year, now I'll surely follow your advice and hopefully it will last longer

To answer, YES! I'm tired of being a Plant Killer! Thank you for your guidance!

I repotted my basil and plucked out the weakest plants as I went and I now have about 4 of them which are doing much better than the entire bunch was originally

My problem is aphids. Hate them. Had 3 pots going last year, and they decimated them. Also, I usually take cuttings straight away, then propagate in water.

We do this and from May onwards put a couple in the garden too. They grow huge in the ground.

Just found you and really enjoyed this Video. It explains everything about buying a Basil plant. Thought it was me, so much that I refuse to but basil plants and now grow by seed. But now I know. Going to watch some past videos because I am a new houseplant mom and have tons of questions . take care

I've lost SO much money on grocery store-bought basil. This video and the one on propagating the tops of leggy plants have motivated me to try again. Your encouragement is much appreciated.

I thought this was going to be one of those spoofs where you announce that if you'd just stop eating it it would stay full and lush. I've never grown herbs inside so didn't have an issue 😬

It’s like you know my life 😂 but mine is coriander. I could eat coriander with everything

I get bunches of basil like that at my local market but they were grown with hydroponics, I just stick the clump of roots in a cocktail glass that sits in front of my kitchen window and add water as they soak it up and it all keeps nice and fresh for weeks. Maybe there's less competition for space or something when soil isn't a factor or they're just more hardy from how they grew somehow.

Perfect timing for me seeing this video, i get mother's day gifts for our moms at my church which usually means herbs and flowers i harvest and propagate been my garden and whatever i can find in stores. This is a great idea how to get many plants and start them off right from one purchase at the store!

THANKS-Perfect timing-I'm dealing with this exact issues with my store-bought plant now.

I divide a store bought basil every year amd plant outside with my tomatoes.

Yup. Texas here. Mine goes straight out into the garden. I cut the tops off, and I'm rooting those too. I gotta get 'em growin' before the heat hits.

What an encouraging video and so Nice to see how you Care for the baby basil - 🙏for the inspiration

Bravo, someone got this correct. I Plant basuk seeds when it is very warm outside - July, spaced well apartr, pinch the tops, it will bush out. He is correct store basil is mean to be used almost right away.

After I saw your video, I went and did the same steps with a Gardenia plant that I bought two weeks ago, that was getting wilted. There were eleven plants rooted together, I separated them yesterday and today they are alive and healthy….thank you so much for

I just discovered this today as a matter of fact by accident as I was pulling it out of the soil because I had given up due to it's very sad appearance. upon seeing how packed it was in the little pot I realize, "oooooooooooooooh, now I see what the problem has been!" and then came online to see what can I do to save the bedraggled leaves. this is great for next time and all those individual plants give me hope..........so thanks. as well, at some point I too would like to have my own online videos so thank you for how you advertised what you did. I have NO idea on how to do it so thank you for that too! very nice instructional video and I love the faces you made during your cutting process. subscribed~

It’s the same for flowering planters they overload for initial curb appeal but Halfway through the season they are competing for space.

I am currently successfully rooting store basil from a box in a mason jar! If you are growing from a cutting, make sure to change the water about every other day. It does need that level of babying, at least until it gets some good roots to it. Hopefully I can keep it going until May so I can put it outside.

Oh that wilted plant was sooooo familiar! Thank you, Thank you, sir. I am off to buy a new plant and hopefully my fingers will be as green as yours!

And basil needs to be trimmed back to bush out vs left to get leggy. So plan a good pasta!

I love your commentary on this video. I have had a terrible time with my Basil. Thank you very much for your video and I appreciate you. Blessings.

I did a variation of the "infinite basil" trick last summer, where I kept taking cuttings from it and multiplied my basil plant until I had enough that I could harvest almost daily. Had to get rid of it all when winter rolled around though, it just couldn't take the temperature and humidity levels! Salvaged what I could by drying it out though, worked wonders.

I had the "drying to death" issue two times in a row in the same summer. The next one, I just put them all together in a bigger pot. That work perfectly fine, I had to cut some after 6 month due to basil making flower (i did read that leaves are less tasty after that) and the small one are still in good shape 10 months after the "repoting".

It needs new soil to grow and more space for the roots.

Thanks a bunch! I'll do it next time.

Thank you , great informative video , love Basil 🇨🇦

I'm going to buy some basil today, thank you.🥳

Thank you for actually showing how it's done not just describing the process. I was gifted a basil plant a few days ago and it looks fantastic but I wondered if the 15 or so plants in the one small pot was way too much. It's my intent to keep these guys growing so I'm headed off for supplies! 😃 Thank you also for all your time and effort in creating this video.

Another great tip. Thanks!

Common sense ❤ going to share this on my fb page, so many folk complain to me about this ❤

Thank you for another great video! It’s so easy to learn from you!

Lovely tutorial. Yes, I stopped buying basil like that for the same reason. Didn't realise the solution was so easy. Thanks for sharing.

Thank you you've solved my problem, happy Easter from Oz.

Excellent video! Gets straight down to business, and is clear

I’m growing some from seed currently!

a video like this for strawberries would be awesome. i grow them in the garden just fine but i try to do indoor ones on my plant wall and they fail each time.

Thank you so much! I love basil.