How to Grow Basil Plants From Cuttings

Basil is one of my favorite herbs to grow in my self watering container garden.  It is affordable (especially if you grow basil from seeds,) fairly hardy (since I often forget plants need water to live,) and is the easiest (and cheapest) way to cook with the fancy varieties (opal basil, anyone?) I never see for sale in the grocery store. (Disclosure: I am including some affiliate links for your convenience.)

But the thing I really love about growing basil  is if you have one basil plant, you can use it to propagate the clippings to grow more basil plants!

Yes, really!

How to Propagate Basil Plants

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Propagating (growing roots on plant cuttings) basil is super simple and doesn’t take much time at all.


You will need:

A cutting from a live basil plant that is at least 4 inches long

Mason jar

Water

Sunlight


Step by Step How to Make it:

1. Remove the basil leave from the bottom two inches of the basil stem cutting if needed.

2. Put the basil cutting in a mason jar filled with water and place it in a sunny area. I put mine on my patio with the rest of my container garden.

3. Add to or change the water every few days as needed.  The basil needs the water to grow (obviously) but we don’t want it to get slimy which will prevent the basil cutting from growing new roots.

Growing!

4. When the roots on the basil cutting grow to at least 2 inches in length, plant the rooted basil stem in dirt.

You'll want to wait until the plant is established before you start picking basil leaves off the new plant.

5. Grow the newly propagated basil plant.

6. Eat.

7. Repeat!


Tip: I use a portable dehydrator like this one to dry my basil plants throughout the summer and store them in mason jars to use for the rest of the year to get the most bang for my gardening buck.

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