Thai basil flowers

Thai basil flowers.

The Thai basil that I grew from cuttings and planted out in the garden is doing extremely well. Not only have the plants flourished and branched out, but they’ve already started flowering. Clusters of gorgeous tiny white flowers are lining the tall, dark purple stalks in a beautiful contrast of colours that I find very appealing. Soon, those flowers will fall off, leaving little, shiny black seeds to form in their place, which will in turn be dispersed when they’re ready, to let new basil plants start growing. And these will be the ones that we will use for culinary purposes, since the flavour of the leaves changes once a plant goes to seed. I did attempt to pluck away the flower spikes from just one of the plants, but they’re such fast growers that I missed a day or so checking on them, and lo and behold, there were flowers forming!

But, who’s complaining? They’re gorgeous!

A drop of water clings to the flower of the Thai basil after a late morning rainfall.

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