This is a fun little video of 18 minutes duration that both shows how to grow a nice crop of basil at 58 North in winter with a couple of grow lamps and some aluminum foil on the wall; and shows the power of binary exponentials.
Basically he starts with your typical over planted store cube of basil that isn’t doing well, takes cuttings from the tops to root, plants them out one to a cup, and repeats the process 30 days later. At the end of 60 days, he’s not only had a nice crop harvested, but has more basil plants than you would need unless you are really fond of pesto.
I’ve got a small patch of basil where I just planted it out into the garden today. I was thinking it was maybe a few to few plants (only one 1 quart styro-pot of seeds started) and was thinking I’d need to plant some more seeds. Now I’m thinking maybe not, I can just take some cuttings and root them.
There are many vegetables where cuttings can be used. It isn’t a common food garden technique, but I don’t know why. Seeds or commercial pots seem to dominate the space. This video has encouraged me to give it a try, as I do like too much pesto ;-)
FWIW, in another video they mentioned that a few drops of vinegar in the rooting water helps stimulate root formation. Though from the looks of it, basil doesn’t need much encouraging!
I’ve decided that since most of my outdoor leafy plants get hit with some kind of bug or another (the chard especially is a leaf miner magnet) that I’m going to do some indoor hydroponics. Eventually. This looks like an easy way to get started with indoor growing then move to a hydroponic tub later.
Musings from the Chiefio 
Just a note about something I learned in my garden.
The Local Home Depot was having a sale on bags of Miracle Grow “garden soil”. The bag noted “not for use in pots”. So why do you need to add dirt to a garden that is already dirt? Well, I bought it anyway. And used it in pots. Seeds sprouted and grew well, but then at a few inches tall would start to yellow and slow. Something was deficient…
The bag said it did not contain all the “minerals” a plant needs….
What is in rocks that plants need, in excess of the “fertilizer” standard stuff? Calcium & Magnesium. I didn’t see any magnesium listed on the ingredients.
Sprinking a table spoon of Epsom Salt (MgSO4) on each large pot and watering it in, growth picked up again, new leaves were nicely green, and old leaves eventually greened up too.
FWIW, looking at Miracle Grow garden fertilizer (the blue stuff) it is also missing Mg. That’s why the varioius formulas for using it in hydroponics say to use 2 tsp of it to 1 tsp of Epsom Salt / gallon of solution.
What this particular episode taught me was that knowing about hydroponic mixes can help with dirt gardening too.
Mg is central to the chlorophyll molecule in the same way that Iron is central to hemoglobin. That’s why plants need it or they become yellow. They literally can’t make green without it. So, as of now, I’m adding an Epsom Salt spray to my Miracle Grow spray in my dirt garden.
Basil is one of the easiest things to root but needs long light/short dark to remain in growth mode.or it will mature into bloom/seed mode and is difficult to continue with. Actually it is the length of darkness that triggers it. A habit that most annuals follow…pg