Garden Tip: Best Basil Varieties for Your Garden

New and old favorite varieties of basil are useful to gardeners and cooks for very different reasons, so it is important to know what you need from a basil plant before you buy. With so many new varieties being introduced all the time though, it is harder than ever to choose the perfect basil plant for cooking, aroma or size.

Over the last ten years I have planted as many types of basil as I could find to determine which ones were best for my garden and kitchen. Here are the three best basil varieties that work for a wide range of gardens while giving you the best fragrance, appearance, and flavor.

Red Rubin

Red Rubin is one of my favorite varieties of basil to grow because it looks beautiful enough to fit right into your flower garden and packs a punch in the kitchen. This herb is a deep purple color that is a little more compact than other varieties so it grows well along borders and in beds, where tidiness can be an issue. I find it interesting that most purple basils get a bad rap, because I have never had a problem growing or harvesting them-- and cannot complain about their taste either. For the best results, plant basil when you plant your tomatoes, keeping them on the same watering schedule as well. It is also important to gather Red Rubin basil often as the growing season for the plant is short and new growth will be encouraged.

Lemon Basil

Lemon basil is the first herb plant I ever had, so I am very loyal to the herb and use it all the time. Lemon basil grows fast and full, filling in any bare spots you have in your garden or any pot that you plant it in. If you are looking for aromatic varieties, lemon basil is probably the most pungent variety that I have had in my own garden. If it is a flowering basil that you are looking for, lemon basil does flower late in the season, and even though they are not huge blooms they look beautiful planted along a high garden border. Add the smell and flowers to the fact that lemon basil looks and tastes as good as it smells and you have one of the most versatile basil varieties for your garden.

Summerlong

A relatively new basil variety, Summerlong, is quickly becoming a favorite because of its compact size, making it able to work in more gardens and container gardens, and the exceptionally long growing season it experiences. Even with its smaller size Summerlong produces almost twice as much usable basil as more traditional varieties. I highly recommend this variety for anyone who has a very limited amount of space in their garden or for container gardens. Also, any kitchen herb gardeners would get a lot of use out of this plant because the yield is really amazing and the fact that it does not flower until late September guarantees that you will be able to get as much out of it as you can.