Sweet basil is one of the most common varieties. Popular in salads, pastas, pesto and more, most of the basil you will find in a grocery store is sweet basil. One of the beauties of basil is there isn’t a real, definitive harvest time – just pick what you need as you need it. And the best part is the more you harvest, the more a basil plant will produce. Regular harvesting will keep plants full and round. Harvest before the plant goes to seed, or “bolts.” When basil goes to seed, the leaves will often have a bitter flavor. I just cut my sweet basil and have some drying and some to put in oil for later use.
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| Green Basil ~ grew really well in part shade |
While the flavor is not as sweet as some basil varieties, purple basil has a clove-like, slightly spicy flavor is wonderful fresh in salads, pesto, or preserved in oils and vinegar's. Until I researched purple basil, I couldn't pin down the flavor... yep, it is slightly clove like and spicy! Will be drying some and can hardly wait to see how it flavors vinegar and oil
. Hints from another blogger: Fill a large jar with half white vinegar, half cider vinegar, stuff it with purple basil, and let it steep for a week. Then you strain it and pour the resulting gorgeous magenta vinegar into a pretty bottle with a few sprigs of fresh basil.
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| Purple Basil ~ did fabulous this year! |
