Can You Cut Basil All Back After Flowering?

Flowers and Seed

• Basil is a valuable culinary herb, prized not only for its foliage but for its flowers, which are a pretty summer addition to your garden. The flowers may be eaten, used as cut flowers or left to form seed. Start growing a fresh supply of basil indoors or in the next growing season by purchasing new plants or seeds or by saving seeds from the flower heads of your existing plants. Basil seed remains viable for several years if kept in a cool, dry location.

Foliage

• Pinch off basil flower buds when they start to form if harvesting leaves from the plants is your main objective. This prevents both the plants from becoming woody and the slowing of production of new foliage that can accompany flowering. Pinching back flowers gives the plants' foliage more flavor. You should also pinch out the terminal growth to encourage the plants to branch, develop a more dense growth habit and produce more tender foliage.

Harvest

• Harvest basil leaves by collecting single leaves or collect a length of stem with several leaves by cutting away the stem about 1/4 inch above a leaf pair. Basil plants begin to create new growth at the cut after a week. Collect basil in the morning, and wait about two weeks between taking cuttings from the plants. Leaves may be collected more frequently.

Extending the Season

• Basils are very tender, warm-season plants. You can continue to harvest the leaves from the herbs for as long as they produce them. Healthy basil plants will produce foliage even after flowering, until the plants are killed by frost. Pending a move indoors to spare them exposure to cold weather, you can cut back basils before digging their roots for transplant into containers. You should leave enough foliage intact to give the plants the ability to recover from the stress of the move. This will extend the growing season, but the plants will still not survive over the long term.

Cutting Back Plants

• Basil plants need foliage to help feed new growth, so plants cut back to ground level are unlikely to recover. If you cut growth back to ground level at any point in the season, you will probably kill your plants. According to the Mississippi State University Extension, you can safely cut your plants back to one-third to one-half their height.