In hindsight, I should have figured they would flower, but I was surprised to see it. Will more leaves grow on top of the flowers, or just from the new shoots? Should I cut the flowers off? It's an indoor plant, so I plan to keep it around as long as possible, but I don't eat basil that often so it doesn't get pruned regularly.
by Klementine22
22 Comments
Cut them off or it will go to seed. Keep it trimmed of flowers and you will get great leaves for a long time.
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Cut them off or the plant thinks it’s “done” and stops putting out leaves.
If possible trim them just above the lowest split/nodes. They will grow out from whatever is just under the cut, so if you consistently cut low, you encourage it to bush out and you get more leaves. You can do this every time you make a larger harvest (like you are making pesto, not just putting one leaf on your tomato sandwich) and by the end of the season it’ll be pretty lush.
Or let it go to seed… if it’s an heirloom that is.
I would cut it half way down and make a little pesto.
Cut at the red line [https://imgur.com/a/CxfWIc5](https://imgur.com/a/CxfWIc5)
This will make those two small branches to grow and create new branches, then keep doing that (cutting just after a set of two clusters of leaves) to make your basil fuller and fuller.
I grow quite a few varieties of basil and those who are convinced it stops growing once it flowers are wrong. It’ll keep growing.
With that in mind, I pick the flower spires and strip the flowers off into food. They taste good and you don’t need to chop them.
Once they flower the basil is bitter. So pop those flower heads off when you see them start. Or you can leave it, let it flower and soon you’ll have a million basil seeds to start new plants. Those babies are prolific!!
Harvest the seeds and plant for next year. Especially is heirloom!
Break flowering part off. Don’t let herbs go to seed like this has.
In general you want to cut the flowers off so that the plant doesn’t pour a lot of energy into making seeds. Also to keep the plant bushy trim the tops of the longer stems to promote the growth of side branches.
Basil flowers are edible and if you have more basil than you can use then dry what you trim and use it as dried basil.
I pinch them before they flower if I can
I have cut, not cut, ignored, and babied basil. It just keeps growing regardless.
Basil seeds are certainly edible and I enjoy them
I let my basil go to seed and am rewarded by having lots of bees and goldfinches. I especially like Thai and African basil. Basil is usually easy to grow so there’s enough to enjoy yourself and let some go to seed for the wildlife.
It no longer tastes good
I usually let at least one go to flower once it gets pretty large—pollinators seem to love it!
I usually let once plant flower and cut the rest.
The reason for this is that the flowers are delicious, the bees love them, and I get seeds.
But it will slow the growth a ton and I’ve heard it gets bitter but I don’t know if I’ve noticed that.
First thing is to eat one of the flowers – they’re delicious and sweet. Next thing is to recognize that all the sugar that used to make the leaves taste good has moved to the flowers, making the leaves on at least that stalk bitter. Nothing you can do about that, but if you have any unbolted stalks you could try propagating a cutting from one of those so you can start over. Or wait until the seeds form and plant those.
It tastes more bitter after blooms
I always trim the flowers off my basil. So far, It has been growing fine. Hopefully, it will surpass winter.
https://preview.redd.it/2sajsfsnv9od1.jpeg?width=2252&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=24f4666ac3fa826fa109f7e8553e6e00bad09e26