Basil Burglar...how do I save my herb??

17 years ago

My Basil herb Finally came up. It was coming along rather nicely. A few days ago I realized that there was a couple stems sticking out of the dirt. Something had snipped the basil off right under the leaves and carried the leaves away. My dad said later that he saw a bug in the planter with the Basil, but he was unable to identify the bug. I did have quite a few little basil plants started. Since a couple days ago, I am left with only 2 baby Basil plants. Tonight they may disappear.

Do any of you know what bug this could be? How do I save my Basil?

The herb was planted in a planter. It wasn't even in the ground.

Please help. Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

AR_Dramaqueen

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Comments (8)

Daisyduckworth
17 years ago
Could be any chewing bug, or slugs or snails. They just love eating baby plants of any kind! Sprinkle some bran or sawdust around your babies to prevent the creepy chompers, and make a little tent with some mosquito fabric (the kind you cover your baby's cot or pram with) to keep away the flying chompers.

You could try cutting the top and bottom off a plastic soft-drink bottle, or a cardboard milk container and put it over your babies. Makes the plants harder to find and get at.

You could also try spraying your plants with some garlic spray. So you can't wait for a week? Use it straight away! It won't affect the flavour of the plants, but yours aren't ready for harvesting yet anyway. Keep up the spray about once a week or so if you've still got thieves - just wash the leaves as you would normally before using them if you don't want the garlic taste.

GARLIC SPRAY:
Soak 1/2 cup crushed garlic cloves in 1/2 cup vegetable oil for one week. Add a little liquid soap and dilute the mixture - 1 part mixture to 10 parts water. Garlic spay will kill and repel aphids, woolly aphids, bean fly, stink bugs, crickets, grasshoppers, red spider mite, sawfly larvae, scale, snails, slugs, thrips and caterpillars, mosquitoes and ticks, the adult moths of leaf-miners and mealy bugs. It is an effective fungicide when used 3-4 times a week against potato blight and damping off.
herbalbetty
17 years ago
Could be slugs. I HATE slugs. You can make little copper collars for your plants. Think of a mini chimney about 3 inches high around the base of your plant. Slugs won't cross the copper because it gives them a little shock due to the slug's sliminess. You can also sprinkle diatomaceous earth around the soil. Don't get the DE used for pools, this has been treated and won't work. Get the DE used specifically for slug control. It is totally organic and won't hurt you or your pets. Good luck!
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Since it's been a couple of weeks, I wanted to give an update. My basil hasn't died and it seems that whatever had affected it hasn't spread to the entire plant. I ended up cutting off and discarded most of the affected leaves and sprinkled the remaining leaves with red pepper. I have no real reason for that, other than I assumed that anything that liked basil probably wouldn't care for red pepper. I also cut off one of the side branches to see if it would produce new leaves and it did, so I take that as a good sign. I'm thinking Klovescats79 was probably correct about it being pests munching on the leaves and I was overreacting a bit. I've always had great success with all of my gardening attempts, except for herbs, basil in particular. It's always bolted really early or just shrivles up and dies before the leaves are big enough to bother harvesting. I'm hopeful that this plant will survive!
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Flora, is the weather the same all across UK ?. Yes, seysonn - the climate is pretty much the same all across the UK with far less variation than in the US. Remember, many of the States are larger than our entire country. Essentially the majority of the country can be treated as one zone. In fact we don't even use a zone concept here since everywhere is roughly the same. It is quite possible UK posters have no idea what the zone box is for and wouldn't know their zone anyway. I had to look mine up but although it says 8/9 that really only fits for the minimum temperatures and gives no comparison with a US 8/9. There is nowhere here where it is reliably hot enough to grow large healthy outdoor basil plants without some sort of protection. Outdoor plants are usually runty and often ill looking. Some years it will do OK but it is a gamble. This year we have had (and when I say we I mean the entire country), the coldest least sunny spring and early summer for 50 years. We also have pretty much universally reasonably good soils so nutrient problems are not a common issue, especially for Mediterranean herbs like basil. Although, the OP's zone is not at the head of the post he/she said they bought the plants at Homebase, which is a UK store, and fed them with Baby BIo, a UK product, so I then checked their location and it said UK. Also I can usually tell by the language whether a poster is US or UK based, although sometimes the Canadians confuse me a little ;-) Bottom line is - basil, like tomatoes, is not suited to outdoor culture in the UK. It can be done but it is a project and is often a failure. Plus the OP did not separate the multiple plants. No amount of tinkering with feeding will overcome this. They need to be separated and protected. This is my basil - indoors in a container.
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It wilted due to stress. Maybe a lack of water. I'm guessing there were few root hairs on the roots. Transferring from a system where roots are constantly wet to one where they are only slightly damp can be a shock. Try watering heavily. They might pull out of it. Sometimes a plant can look like it's dead when it's in shock, but pulls out just fine. But, sometimes they really are dead. I grow all plants hydroponically at the beginning. All my soil garden plants are started in an ebb and flow system. However, these plants are in coco coir and develop some really nice root hairs. My plants rarely experience transplant shock and when they do, it's because I did something clutzy like dropped them when pulling them out. I've transplanted from DWC (where the roots just dangle in water) to soil, too. The plants suffered for a day, but pulled out of it. I thought they would die. Something to consider is that if you plant in direct sunlight, that could hurt them, too. It's best to transplant to soil on overcast days or shade the plants with something. I'm guessing the basil is of pretty good size, too. It's best to harvest some of the leaves to reduce transpiration if the plant is used to constantly being immersed in water. I wouldn't do it now as the plants seem to be overly stressed, but in the future you might keep that in mind.
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Heathen1
17 years ago
also, my favorite... a shallow bowl full of beer... the slugs flock to it and DIE DIE DIE! :oD
CA Kate z9
17 years ago
I'm having trouble with the birds eating the new sprouts.
don_na_na
Original Author
17 years ago
Sadly, all of my baby plants are gone. I woke up the next morning after writing the message, and went to check my plants. The bugs had gotten away with my last 2 babies. Now, all of my hard work for the summer has completely gone to waste. I don't have any baby herbs at all. My Basil was the only thing that was making it.
Well, atleast next year I will know how to keep the critters out.
Thank you for all of your replies.
AR_Dramaqueen
maifleur01
17 years ago
It shouldn't be too late for you to plant basil again this year. With your growing season you should have at least four months or more of warm weather.
CA Kate z9
17 years ago
You might be able to find new herb plants at a Farmer's Market, or possibly a nursery. I think I'd put my herbs in large plastic pots that you can set into your garden. If it is bugs, that will stop them, but if it's a larger critter that's another story.
don_na_na
Original Author
17 years ago
They were in pots. They were in pots that sit on the railing of our deck. The bug just got into the pot.
Maybe I can talk Mama into buying me some more seeds. It was bugs though. My dad saw the creepy crawly snip the top of one baby plant, but he could not stop the critter from going below the dirt. I doubt it was an ant because he said he didn't know what it was, and he knows what most outside stuff is.
Maybe I can replant. Mom will just have to wait longer for her herb garden.
AR_Dramaqueen

Basil Burglar...how do I save my herb??

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Daisyduckworth

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Basil Burglar...how do I save my herb??

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