planting basil

A few weeks ago, I decided to harvest all of my basil plants from the Clash of the Composts! experiment. They were all looking so good for so long...those big bright and shiny green leaves. At a certain point, they outgrew their pots it seemed, and started to look worse. I moved two out of each of the pots in the experiment to free up space, and put them all together in another container. It definitely improved the growth of the experiment pots, but only for a short time. The ones in the new slender container were looking even better. Anyway, I chopped everything off to make a pesto and didn't expect anything to happen in the pots after that. It's been a few weeks, let's see how they look:…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avwvJ1NOKcE Here's the results after three weeks of anxiously watching basil grow.  In order from awesome to least awesome: Tea leaf compost, tumbler compost, commercial compost, worm castings, no compost. The obvious conclusion is that compost is better than no compost.  Not only is it a fertilizer and soil conditioner, but it allows soil to maintain its nutrients and while supporting essential bacteria. Are you surprised by the results?  I thought that the worm castings would come out on top.  I think I could have waited longer on my worm castings, though...same with my tumbler material. I'm going to try the experiment again in a few weeks with all fresh batches of material, and maybe I'll add some other soil types while I'm at it (know anyone with grub compost?).…

As week 2 comes to a close, it's safe to say that the tea leaf compost is still looking the best with all of its seeds sprouted and looking tall.  It also appears to me that using compost is a no-brainer for growing stuff! Is that it?  I think I'm going to keep updating as it goes along...I didn't think I was going to have this much fun with growing basil.  One creepy thing I noticed is that my basil is popping up in places that I SWEAR I didn't put the seeds...namely the commercial compost pot.  I definitely put the seeds around the outsides, too...how are they all clumped in the center?  There was a torrential downpour in the initial stages of the experiment, could that have shuffled them…