8-22-2025: day 0-1 of basil

my mom bought one of those supermarket basil plants so that we could grow fresh basil.

we had that in it's given pot for a few days, and then i found a video about basil that talked about how the supermarket basil plants are mega overcrowded, so i decided to take that basil apart and chose a few stems that looked the most promising (ended up with 5) and decided to grow those separate.

i'm pretty sure the better thing to do would be to put those all in their own pots for a bit to let them get acclimated to having more space and whatnot, but we didn't have any pots on hand for that. we do have some abandoned raised garden beds on the side of the house, however, so i decided to plant them outside in those.

my grandma said the soil looked like it was pretty good and that all i had to do was get it wet and then make it fluffy and pat it down (the soil in those was super dry and hard). i did that with a shovel and the 3-pronged fork thingy (don't know what it's called), and then i planted them. that was yesterday.

i took this picture this morning. they basically look the same as yesterday evening. they're still on the ground. i'm hoping they'll become stronger as they get situated. i gave them plenty of water yesterday, and i've heard the raised garden beds are great for them because the water is able to flow out (i can't remember the right words for that).

i'm in socal where it's 100 degrees in the afternoons at the moment, so i am a little worried about the little guys getting too hot or sunburnt. like i said i was working in a pinch, so if this doesn't work out i'll do it all again with pots prepared so i can get them all nice and strong inside before taking them outside. although based on some basic research they do pretty well in sun and they like heat, and this part of the house gets quite a bit of shade in the morning and early evening, so it shouldn't be too bad.

I also put this guy in a mug with some water so the roots can grow. if that works i'll put him in a little pot inside. but a couple of the leaves have some browning so im not sure this'll work. i wasnt originally intending to save this one; i didnt think to do this until after i threw the rest of the basils away (im realizing that throwing them away was a huge mistake actually; i could have made pesto or something), and i forgot about this one so i gave him a chance. so now he's in a mug on the windowsill in the kitchen.

That afternoon

Later on in the day I started to notice that the little guys were getting a bit soft and flimsy with the heat. My grandma told me to put them under the shade of this small table.

Later on I also decided after some internet research to trim off the leaves above the first node on the plants, and then I took out one of them entirely when I noticed it was just too weak.

8-23-2025

By this morning they seem to be doing very well now. The stems are nice and firm and they're standing up pretty straight.

There's already been a rosemary bush in a different part of the backyard for a while; I decided to propagate that this morning, so this post may become a post about an entire herb garden eventually (or I'll lose the hyperfixation and everything will die).