Hey Steemians,

I am humbled by the response to my first posts here. I can tell this community is awesome already, so I am super excited to contribute what I can here.

Thank you to who commented, I loved connecting with you:

• https://steemit.com/howto/@halcyondaze/how-to-remove-rust-from-tools-easily

I figured I would continue with the fun how to gardening series with a description of how I prune my basil plants so they grow effectively "forever" - OK, not technically forever, but much longer than you're probably growing them right now!

Here is a video if you prefer that, otherwise I'll break it down into steps below!

Apical Meristems and Stem Cells for Plants?!

This pruning technique revolves around snipping off the apical meristem of your basil plant, or the region of your basil where the cells are actively and rapidly dividing to create new growth. The apical meristem is at the growing tip of the plant, and the cells are undifferentiated, meaning they can become whatever the plant needs them to be. They're stem cells.

In the above picture, you can see the apical meristem of a basil plant I am growing in a hydroponic setup.

What Happens When You Behead Your Basil?

In the above picture, you can see where I've clipped OFF the apical meristem.

If the apical meristem is the region of rapidly growing, undifferentiated cells, what happens when we chop it off?

Well, if you look closely at the picture above you'll notice two smaller stems next to where I pruned off the apical meristem...

These are what will become the new growing tips for this section of the basil plant. This causes your basil to become bushier, because instead of growing straight up, it's growing out in two opposite directions.

And just imagine — you can do this to those stems too if you want!

One Final Pruning Tip For Your Basil

One last thing — to preserve the flavor of your basil, make sure to pinch or clip off any flowering sections of the plant as soon as you see them. Once your basil moves into the flowering phase of growth, the flavor within its leaves changes to be more bitter, which ruins the reason we're growing it in the first place!

I'll leave you with one final picture of my basil after I massacred it...and used the leaves in a delicious salad ;)

Thanks For Reading!

I'm new to Steemit and appreciate any and all feedback on my writings! If you liked it, let me know what you liked! If you didn't, let me know how I can improve for next time!

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https://steemit.com/@halcyondaze

Thanks and happy pruning,
Kevin