BASIL (Ocimum basilicum)
Published: 2015-03-13Tags: алелопатия, босилек, другаруване, растения-компаньони
Translation
This is a translation of a Bulgarian-language post. It conveys the content faithfully but is not the author's original English writing.
Basil helps tomatoes cope with pests and diseases, and improves their growth and flavour. Grow it alongside them. Or plant it among the peppers, since it has the same soil and cultivation requirements. If you regularly pinch off their tips before flowering, they will grow into small, compact tufts.
It has been known since antiquity that basil and rue do not get along at all — perhaps because one is sweet and the other bitter — so grow them far from one another.
Basil is heat-loving, so it is important to sow the seeds for seedlings indoors, somewhere warm, 6 to 8 weeks before the last spring frosts. When the finished seedlings are moved out into the garden, the spacing between each one should be at least 15 cm.
If you want basil leaves all summer long, you need to pinch off the flowering stems in good time, so as not to let the plant mature.