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I just saw this other post, https://lemmy.world/post/50970674, about cutting the flowers off of a basil plant. I noticed that mine was growing fairly quickly, until the flowers showed up, and now the leaves have stopped getting bigger.
If the plant has already developed flowers, do I still cut them off?
You will get more edible leaves by cutting back. The taste of the basil leaves can change if you don’t cut them off too.
Or you can do what I do, realize you don’t use enough basil to justify growing it for food, then continue to grow it anyway and let the plant flower so the bees can have it. My local bees love when I let my basil flower.
This is why I let my Basil and Oregano plants bolt mid summer, and just plant new ones for the end of season. Our bees LOVE the flowers.
Heck yeah! Thank you for supporting your local bee community!
Can confirm that bees seem to love the shit out of basil flowers. Haven't seen many bumblebees, but the European honeybees adore them.
I like that idea, but this in on the balcony in a condo building several floors up, and I don't really get any pollinators up here. Maybe I could coordinate with the people on the other floors so that there is a "flower path" from the ground upwards.
That may make it a bit difficult!