Basil gives and gives.

When harvesting basil, don’t leave your herb harvest on the counter to wilt. Even storing your herbs in the fridge isn’t the best idea. For even more basil, make sure you stand the stems in water while you have time to make your pesto. If you don’t get around to getting that food processor out for a few days, you’ll have a happy surprise, like I did. I wasn’t planning to root my cuttings, but root they did!

Basil stems rooted in water

Basil stems root quite easily in water, and you can pot the rooted stems into fresh soil mix, giving you a new refreshed basil plant and more harvests down the road.

Put each cutting into a 4″ pot, in loose soil mix. Water thoroughly, then leave in bright light, but out of direct sun for a week. Then you’ll have your original plant along with new refreshed plants to take you through the rest of the basil season.