Caring for a Hydroponic Grocery Store Basil Plant Once Home

one-month old produce department basil plant 

My daughter grew impatient waiting for my home-grown from seed basil this summer, and in late June she bought one of those basil plants sold in the produce department of the grocery store. She paid about $3.00 for a pot of about a dozen basil stems grown hydroponically in a tiny container. The container looked to be about 4 ounces in capacity. All of these plants were without soil and kept in a flat of water at the store and over-wrapped in florist cellophane to hold in moisture and prevent damage to the leaves.

Once home, the label said to remove the protective cellophane and place the little pot in a deep saucer with about an inch of water, then place the whole plant in indirect light indoors. I suspected basil plants cared for in this way were designed to last a couple of weeks, max, with no soil to provide nutrients and even out the moisture.

a soil level view of the dozen or so plants all together in a single pot

Since my daughter really wanted her basil to last all summer, I gave her some instructions for lengthening the lifespan of her plants. The roots had grown very long and were tangled, coming through the holes in the tiny cup. I knew the roots couldn't be pulled back through the holes to remove the plants from the cup. So I told her to use the clippers to snip down the sides of the cup in several places, breaking off the cup sides as she could without injuring the plants. Then I gave her a 1-gallon pot to fill with fresh potting soil. After filling, she carefully sank the basil plants still in the now broken-open cup into the larger pot of soil. Our thinking was the roots would continue to grow and would escape the tiny cup and find growing space in the larger pot. 

For the first few days the plants looked a bit wilty. My daughter gave it water daily and placed it outdoors in a filtered-sun spot during the days only. The plant had spent its entire life inside a temperature-controlled greenhouse. So I assumed that it would not be hardy enough to live outdoors all of the time, nor could it handle a lot of direct sun.

It's been a month now and her plant looks beautiful. It's bushy and thriving under her care. I've shown her how to pinch back the tops of stems, instead of plucking off individual leaves, when she wants basil with her lunches or wants to make a small amount of pesto. By pinching back stems to harvest, the flowering stage of a basil plant's life is delayed by many weeks. I do think she'll be able to keep her basil going for the rest of summer as she'd hoped.

My daughter has given her basil plant the British man's name Basil (pronounced with a short -a- in the first syllable). Basil the basil. A little humor goes a long way in making days bright.