July 11, 2006

I managed to grow a number of sweet basil plants but I'm not happy with the results. I'm still interested in growing sweet basil but starting with store-bought seeds is not a workable solution because they are not likely to be of high quality (fast growth). Right now I selected the fastest-growing of the store-bought seeds and I'm going to try and get seeds from these to generate a faster-growing second generation.

The sweet basil is the one that has grown properly and I only kept the sweet basil.

April 14, 2006

The four original Sweet Basil plants that where started last month are now going outside after having been used as clone mothers.

I also put the cloned Spicy Bush (cuttings from April 7 th) in soil and put a new Spicy Bush cutting in water.

April 12, 2006

All five cuttings from April 7 have roots. I took three of them and put the root tips in mycorezhae powder and then I put them in soil; the two other cuttings are still in water.

April 7, 2006

I took cuttings from 5 Sweet Basil plants and put them in water.

March 31 2006

I started all the Thai seeds I had left. The first bunch never germinated. I mixed the seeds in with crushed Endo/Ecto Plus and covered with soil and bottom watered.

March 24 2006

I pulled out most of the sweet basil seedlings that where planted on the 13th, keeping only the fastest growing ones and I'm hoping to cross-breed them for seeds.

I started some Spicy Bush basil seeds mixed with some crushed MycoApply Endo/Ecto Plus.

March 21 2006

1. Sweet Basil The original basil seeds started on March 8, 2006. The two closest to the HPS are much bigger than the two closest to the window.

2. Sweet Basil The seeds that where started in a water-logged soil on the 13 th. So far the extreme treatment does not seem to have any ill effect.

5. Sweet Thai seeds started on March 19 th.

March 19 2006

I threw away the Sweet Thai that was in between towels and started another batch. I crushed some Endo/Ecto Plus and mixed in some seeds. I put the mixture on top of some soil and covered the whole thing with wet soil/molasses.

March 14 2006

I have the plants in a heated humidity dome. In the evening I remove the top and turn on a 175 watts HPS light to allow air flow and extend the amount of available light.

I now have 4 seeds of Sweet Basil that have come out and 4 germinated seeds that haven't. I am considering throwing the other four away.

I received some more seed packs in the mail and started some Sweet Thai Basil.

March 13 2006

Of the 8 germinated seeds that was put in soil two days ago three have come out. Since I've been told that Basil gets very easily damaged by moisture; so I'm going to put a whole bunch of seeds in very wet soil hoping that a few high-resistance plants can emerge. Since I can Sweet Basil seeds at 3 for $1.00 it's not much of a loss.

March 12 2006

I was at a small Thai restaurant today and I asked them about their use of Thai Basil. They use 3 kg. a week and pay CAN$14 a Kg.

March 11 2006

I put 8 germinated seeds in a mixture of shrimp compost and vermiculite with some Endo/Ecto Plus mycorrezhae a heated nursery.

March 8, 2006

Today I bought a pack of Sweet Basil seeds called "Heirloom Variety" from a company called Valley Greene. I put some of them in between wet tissues (with a few drops of hydrogen peroxide) in a sealed plastic container. Since this is Canada and it's winter I put the container on top of an electric radiator. To keep it from getting to hot I put the container at the end.