I haven't posted at all this week because I started school!!!!!
Yay me. It's fun. I'll talk about it later.
I have a confession to make... I've been ashamed of it for a long time.
I used to get ridiculed about it all the time when I was in middle school. But it be honest, to was the slackest club there was and I got full "Club points" for the year so I got a special award at the end of the year.
All we did was take care of all the plants in the school(one teacher one other girl and myself), which meant watering them all 2 times a week, trimming, repotting, splitting, splicing, and all that jazz.
In other words... I know some stuff about plants.
That said!
Last time I bought basil I thought to myself. WHAT ON EARTH AM I DOING!???? I SHOULD HAVE A BASIL PLANT ALREADY! Then I remembered that I've looked for one a few times at the farmers market. But to no avail. I'm not much for blue basil and that's all they really had.
So I decided to make my own plant.(I'd just like to say that this is the great thing about "REAL" food. You can make you own perpetuating source from a lot of it. Yogurt, Keifer, kombucha, plants. Patterns are fun)
I've successfully started an adorable little basil plant. He's growing strong. We can't use his leaves yet, but we love him all the same.(Rene is french, so everything we talk about is a he or a she(He was raised English, it's just a thing he got from his mum))
What you will need to start your own basil(or any other herb really) is one of those packs of basil you buy from the store(or the farmers market, or from a friend) All you need is one good healthy stalk of the plant. Then you are going to chop the plant off at one of the "Off shoots" so that it looks kinda like this:
Yes I know this is parsley not basil
then you plunk it in a cup of water in front of a window for a while. It will start to grow little "Nubs", at the point where the stems come together, after a few days. Wait till those nubs have grow into at least 1 inch long roots, you can wait longer, but I'm impatient.
Then you plant your new little baby in some soil and give it some water. Herbs like to dry out a little bit in between watering so it's okay not to water it every day.
As you can see I'm trying this with parsley(Because damn it sally I'm sick of spending 2 dollars on it when I want chicken stock!), it doesn't seem to be working. But it still might. If it hasn't sprouted roots after 2 weeks, it's probably not going to.
One caution try not to let the leaves rest in the water, they will get water logged and fall off then your poor plant won't be able to feed itself!
If you have any troubles with this, drop a comment, I'd be glad to help.
PLANTS FOR ALL!
An update:
Parsley does not work. I didn't think it would when I started. I think the plant is just too... "water based"(I'm not sure how to explain it) Kind of like how celery is just green solid water. But it will work with just about any other herb. If someone tries rosemary let me know what happens. I'm curious if it will work(I'll probably just end up trying it myself in a few days)
Shared at:
Pennywise platter @ Nourishing Gourmet
Food Roots @ Nourishing days
Fight Back Fridays @ Food Renegade
3 comments:
Awesome! I heard about this before, and I tried it with something (might have been parsley), and it didn't work. So I haven't tried it again. I do have some herbs in my yard, but I'd like to have a few others. I will have to try this again.
Cool idea! Thanks for sharing. :-)
I know how you feel about having to spend two dollars on parsley.....
Oh, and by the way, yours and a few other entries didn't get saved on to Pennywise Platter yesterday. So sorry about that! My internet wasn't working right and didn't "publish it". But it's on now!
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