Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] wilting cilantro - basil

market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Market Farming

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Road's End Farm <organic87 AT frontiernet.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] wilting cilantro - basil
  • Date: Mon, 7 Jun 2010 22:28:26 -0400


On Jun 7, 2010, at 9:29 PM, KAKerby AT aol.com wrote:

Rivka, when you harvest your basil this way, how far down the stem do you go?  We started harvesting basil as a cut-and-come-again earlier this year.  At first my customers were very happy to see basil so early, but then about a week after harvesting the plants I'd go back and they'd be dead or dying.  At first I though it was something unrelated but several weeks of that and genius girl here figured out that the plants just never recovered from that initial harvest.  I wonder now if I was harvesting too early in the plant's life, too far down the plant, and/or if it was just too cold out (this is the PNW after all) for them to recover before succumbing to stress and disease.  I'd rather remember this year as the year I learned how to harvest basil sustainably, rather than killing a bunch of it in vain.  :(
Kathryn Kerby
frogchorusfarm.com
Snohomish, WA

I cut back each of the taller stems to just above a good pair of little leaves -- I'm trying to think how to describe how much of the plant we leave, I know when it looks right but explaining it to somebody not looking at the plants is something I'm not used to. I think we're usually leaving about 1/3 to 1/2 of the leaves on the plant; taking a bigger percentage from a really big healthy plant and a smaller percentage from a smaller plant. Usually some of the stems are shorter and we may leave the shorter ones alone entirely until the next cutting, when of course they'll be taller.

I doubt it was the age of the plants. You can start very early just pinching back the tips; this helps the plants branch out. I've taken tips even from plants still in the transplant trays, not yet out in the field, if we hadn't planted them quite on time and they'd gotten tall. At that stage it's a smaller percentage, though; maybe a quarter of the plant or less. On really small plants that aren't branching sometimes I'll just pinch off the top couple of leaves to make them branch, or the top couple of each branch if they do have a couple of stems.

How cold was it? Basil doesn't like the cold, and really resents temperatures under 40ยบ F. Did they have enough water? (Is Snohomish in the wet or dry half of the state? They could have had too much water, of course; but I think you would have noticed other things drowning, not just the basil.) 

We're using Genovese; I don't know if varieties might matter, but I have grown other basils, including some purple basils; the purples don't grow as well as Genovese but I never had any of them die from this harvesting technique; they just don't grow as fast.


-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale






Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page