Several years ago I bought a different variety basil plant from a vendor at the local farmers market. The variety – African Blue basil, is the one I’ve had the greatest success with over the years here in Houston. My first plant grew as a perennial over several winters. It was constantly getting so large that I had to trim it out of the walkway and make pesto. It was so big and prolific a grower that I dubbed it Bazilla. I was devastated when after 5 years, it gave up the ghost during one of our rare frosts.
While the African blue variety doesn’t taste the same as the traditional basil, I think it is a better fit for my garden. First of all it seemed to be VERY bug/disease resistant. Second, it blooms like crazy and attracts a ton of pollinators to my garden. Third it is a perennial so I don’t have to replant. It would definitely survive a frost if I covered it or dug it up and put it in a pot in my garage.
Given how well my last one did, when I was at the farmers market last fall and saw some I got really excited. You see African blue basil can’t be grown from seed. So getting a replacement when my beloved Bazilla 1 died was difficult. I hadn’t seen someone with plants in YEARS. This vendor had 3-4 plants so I jumped at the chance to buy one of them to plant again. Given it was Oct/Nov, I had to get the plant through the winter. Luckily it was a frost-less winter and it grew steadily with no trouble. Then spring arrived and it began to thrive.
Since April, I’ve hacked off significant pieces of it five times. First, I cut it down to make pesto twice. Then chopped off two pieces to put in water to root for my neighbor. Still it continues to get larger. Most recently I had to chop off a big section because it was growing over my pepper plants. With the most recent trimmed section I pulled all the leave off and put them in the chopper with garlic, olive oil and toasted slivered almonds to make a big batch of pesto. If I’m lucky it I will have it for many years to make batches of basil on a regular basis.