Basil, the aromatic herb beloved for its pungent flavour in dishes from salads to pizzas, is delicious and it can be easily grown fresh in your home or garden "easily" according to the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS).
Now, a gardener has shared a clever pruning trick to maximise your basil bounty.
Jamie Walton, an eco-conscious vegetable grower known as @nettlesandpetals on TikTok, has advised his followers to resist yanking individual leaves off their basil plants.
Instead, he instructs: "It can be tempting to do this, but instead you should follow the stem up until you see a node and a node is the point at which the leaves meet the stem."
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Demonstrating on his own basil, Walton said: "At this point, you will usually find a couple of new stems forming. So instead of pulling the leaves, you should simply cut just above those nodes."
This method not only yields a "nice bit" of basil for immediate use but also encourages "two new stems forming".
"This will result in a far bushier plant that will last a lot longer and produce a lot more," he concluded.
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Followers were quick to express their amazement in the comments, with one writing: "Oh I'm doing it wrong. I have really tall leggy basil because I just pull leaves."
Another admitted: "I've ripped at my basil with abandon. I wish I'd seen this earlier. Mine is still growing but the stems are so woody."
A third enthused: "I started doing that and my supermarket plant literally exploded with new leaves."