How do I treat my Basil plant in order to keep it alive as long as possible?
Boccaccio had a lot to say about this. Also check at John Keats’ poem Isabella (The Pot of Basil). Isabella has dung up the head of her murdered lover: Then in a silken scarf,- sweet with the dews Of precious flowers pluck’d in Araby, And divine liquids come with odorous ooze Through the cold serpent-pipe refreshfully,- She wrapp’d it up; and for its tomb did choose A garden-pot, wherein she laid it by, And cover’d it with mould, and o’er it set Sweet Basil, which her tears kept ever wet. And so she ever fed it with thin tears, Whence thick, and green, and beautiful it grew, So that it smelt more balmy than its peers Of Basil-tufts in Florence; for it drew Nurture besides, and life, from human fears, From the fast mouldering head there shut from view: So that the jewel, safely casketed, Came forth, and in perfumed leafits spread. Think poetically and your basil will surely grow.
