I was just sitting down to address the question of why I would want to use styrofoam covered with cement for a tabletop when I could make a form and fill it with rebar and 4 inches of cement and be done with it. I saw that NathanHurst had addressed the topic with his usual gentle wit and his own experience. I liked everything he said and I loved the site he sent us to. For me there is an additional component to this desire to make a lightweight concrete table/bench/sphere/leaf/etc. It amazes me. I have been around a long time and am still thrilled when my assumptions are proven wrong. Last summer I saw some men making an EIFS system exterior wall and went over to see if they knew where to get fiberglass mesh you could use with concrete. While I watched them I wondered why I couldn't use the neat stuff they were smearing on the wall to make myself a thin concrete leaf. I couldn't buy any (you have to be trained in the EIFS system before a manufacturer will sell it to you) so I started researching the product and came upon Quickwall and fiber concrete and knowledgeable people on this list and before long I was making 3 pound leaves that seemed as strong as the 20 pounders I had started with. What a surprise! Everything I have done with this mesh and fiber concrete has been a surprise to me. It always is harder/ stronger/ lighter than it "should be" according to my intuitive grasp on the world of physics . My personality wants to see how far this idea can be stretched. If I make 100 pound or 200 pound tabletops I will not be able to move them. If I make 40 pound tabletops I can deal with them. Now all I have to do is make them strong enough to be durable and safe. I think I can do it with cheap materials and some experimentation. Right now I have taken the foam in the pics and gotten rid of the rebar. I have given all sides of the tabletop one quarter inch thick coat of quickwall (fiber/portland/admix) and EISF mesh (alkali resistant fiberglass). My plan is to cure this for a few days and see what I think but probably add a second coat of everything . Then I will think of some way to test the strength of the piece and post the resulting success or failure photo here. Any suggestions what test would be dramatic but realistic for this purpose???? Laura ps I have a horse. Would it be impressive to get her to stand on the tabletop (it would be resting on the ground) --- or would this prove anything?? She weighs about 1200 pounds. It isn't like she is going to "fall thru" styrofoam but she might crack off the concrete covering. I think I could get her to put her front feet on it if it was propped up on a couple of concrete blocks..... would that be better? I would have to lug the whole project 30 miles to the place I keep her so this may not be the best idea.... (for anyone worried about the safety of my horse during this testing.... be assured I value her more than I do most humans. I would do a lot of pretesting to convince myself whether or not it made sense to ask Ellie to be the crash dummy.)

First, basil is not a shrub :-) It is a frost tender true annual and does not typically develop any woody stems. Your plant seems to be showing the signs of etoliation or a legginess due to reaching for light. Cut it back hard, move out into full sun and fertilize on a weekly basis with a liquid fert. When it appears to be forming flowers, pinch them out. And pinching back the growth from the tips of the stems to use for culinary purposes will encourage additional bushiness. Since it is an annual, there is a defined limit to its longevity. In warm areas with an extended growing season, basil can live upto 9 months. In colder areas, 3-4 is a good life :-) FWIW, the leaves don't look as basil-like as I'd expect.....I'd expect to see something more elliptical, less rounded and with charactertistic dimpling/puckering. But it may be the variety you are growing and the conditions that are altering the appearance.

Out here there are also ways to anchor down mid span areas of the joisting as well in crawl space areas that involves pumping in concrete and embedding anchors with strapping that bolts through the joisting. Here in the mojave desert of ca., it's fairly common practice on old homes before the onslaught of concrete slab foundations, which are pretty much the only foundation type you see here these days. Even with slabs though, back when I was framing many moons ago, wall to slab connects were "j" -bolts in the slab that the mudsill bolted down to. Unacceptable practice these days. You can still use "j's" but also have to have simpson strapping from footing up the wall 24" in strategic places depending on load, up lift requiremnets, seismic, etc. Spot on checking with references and it might be a good idea to check and see if that work was engineered and approved via inspections. If not, you might consider a consult with a structural engineer for a few hundred bucks. Might be dinero well spent!

Can you post pictures? Preliminarily though, it sounds like it wasn’t getting enough light so is etiolated. If insufficient light is provided plants will stretch to try to reach whatever light is available. They grow but the result is lanky & weak. Provide better light and new growth should be stronger, healthier and more compact. I don’t think that the current growth will ever get any stronger, though. You could always cut it & try to root the cutting. The remaining stalk should send out new side shoots, but if not given more light, the new growth will be stretched, too.