Is something wrong with my basil?

[TexasGardenGirl]

This year is my first garden. I love to cook, especially Italian, so I of course planted all the herbs I thought I would need and basil is among those. I love fresh basil. Well, I went out to see if I needed to water and my basil has started looking weird.

Can anyone tell me what that is on the leaves? Is it maybe from the dirt splashing up when we got two days of rain? I'm worried it may mean I have to pull the plant and not put anything in the area for awhile. Between this and my tomatoes I feel like my garden is doomed! I mean, I'm sure it isn't. It just sucks because I am seeming to have the worst luck ever! So, can anyone help?

 

[Chuck]

This year is my first garden. I love to cook, especially Italian, so I of course planted all the herbs I thought I would need and basil is among those. I love fresh basil. Well, I went out to see if I needed to water and my basil has started looking weird.

Can anyone tell me what that is on the leaves? Is it maybe from the dirt splashing up when we got two days of rain? I'm worried it may mean I have to pull the plant and not put anything in the area for awhile. Between this and my tomatoes I feel like my garden is doomed! I mean, I'm sure it isn't. It just sucks because I am seeming to have the worst luck ever! So, can anyone help?

Too much water for too long and your plant has a fungal growth. It will look worse before it looks better but should be ok after warmer and drier weather sets in. You might spray with hydrogen peroxide too as it is a pretty good fungicide

 

[TexasGardenGirl]

Too much water for too long and your plant has a fungal growth. It will look worse before it looks better but should be ok after warmer and drier weather sets in. You might spray with hydrogen peroxide too as it is a pretty good fungicide

Do I need to pull the leaves that are affected? If not are they safe to harvest and eat? And thanks for the recommendation. I don't have peroxide on hand but I can go pick some up tomorrow. I like that it isn't a chemical filled solution since I've got a toddler and dog. And who wants chemicals on or in their food? Defeats the purpose of growing at home. Anyway, thanks. I appreciate it.

 

[whatkellisays]

Prune the leaves!
All plants, especially herbs benefit from being cut and harvested. The more you harvest, the more it produces! Make sure you cleanly cut stems to ensure they don't bolt. Be careful of over-watering.

 

[TexasGardenGirl]

Prune the leaves!
All plants, especially herbs benefit from being cut and harvested. The more you harvest, the more it produces! Make sure you cleanly cut stems to ensure they don't bolt. Be careful of over-watering.

Much appreciated. I gave it a pretty heavy pruning and it seems mu h happier now. Turns out to just be a bit of sunscald! So, I made pesto! Now it's come time to prune it again. I didn't realize basil actually enjoyed heavier pruning to produce more leaves. I was afraid of killing it by taking too much. But now I see that it's quite happy to be pruned every few weeks.

 

[nothinfancy]

This happened to me last year and I'm pretty confident it's downy mildew. I had two thriving sweet basil and two thriving Thai basil plants last year and within a couple of weeks they were totally wiped out. It seemed to start with one plant and then gradually migrated over to the other plants. I didn't think much of it initially when the leaves became a gorgeous golden color but when I looked on the underside of the leaves there was a weird fuzzy substance and that got me concerned.

So far this season I haven't seen it but I have noticed it in other gardens. I know this isn't the most encouraging of news. You might be able to carefully prune the bad leaves to try and stop the spreading. I'm in New Orleans so I don't know if the humidity has anything to do with it. Good luck!

http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.edu/NewsArticles/BasilDowny.html

 

[Autumn_Hearthwitch]

Nice, I've never heard of hydrogen peroxide being a good fungicide, I'll have to keep that in mind. Basil does really well when you prune it regularly and will definitely reward you with an abundance of nice leaves. I'm glad to hear it was only sunscald and not some sort of fungal growth, that certainly would not have been fun. Oh I haven't made a good pesto in a while, now I'm going to go home and make one!

 

[TexasGardenGirl]

It was definitely sunscald from the rain followed by the intense sunshine. It happened again when we had more rain and stuff followed by lots of sunshine before the plants could dry. The mulching should help with the splashing of dirt onto the lower leaves. I've harvested a couple times already. Two nights ago I walked out to my garden, clipped some basil along with a few others and made spaghetti sauce! So damn delicious with fresh herbs!

 

[NatalieW]

the sun does that ... I was going to say exactly what Texasgardengirl above just posted... but she has it already! sunburn is a problem for a lot of tender green herbs when they're young, especially after being wet... it'll bounce back after some trimming