8 Basil Varieties You Might Not Know About...

Basil is by far one of the most popular herbs on the planet earth, but there are so many different varieties that you might not be growing in your garden. So if you want to mix it up with something that's a classic herb, but just with a little bit of a twist, this is the video for you. What's up guys? Kevin from Epic Gardening here and today I have a confession to make. I am a basil-aholic. I grow as many varieties of it as I possibly can. And today when I was at the nursery, I was not planning to get any basil, but I went there and I saw all the different varieties that they had at one of my favorite nurseries here in San Diego, which is Walter Anderson's. And I just decided, you know what, I'm going to go for it. We're going Epic Gardening mode and we're going to buy every single basil variety that they have at the nursery. So I have eight different types here. Some of them you may have never heard of before. Some of them might be your pet favorite, but I guarantee there's probably at least one in here that you have not heard of and there's a really good reason to grow it. So let's go ahead and crack into the number one. Number one on the list is Greek columnar basil. You can tell just by looking at it from the side, it's true to its name. It has this sort of upright column style growth pattern, which can be really nice if you're trying to slot it into an area of the garden that doesn't have a lot of horizontal space, but you can throw it up vertically and it'll go maybe two to three feet or so. What's really interesting about this variety is that first of all, like all basil I guess, it smells delicious. But second of all, it doesn't really produce flowers. Sometimes it does, but not that often. Certainly not as much as some of the varieties that are already producing flowers straight out of the nursery. So if you're looking for a basil that is perhaps a little bit lower maintenance, you don't have to come out and prune the flowers off to keep the vegetative growth coming, then this is a really good option. Variety number two is spicy bush basil. So the name kind of gives it away on this one. The flavor, it's not necessarily a hundred percent spicy, but it does have a little bit more of a peppery sort of kick to it than most basil varieties. But what's most unique about this one is that it has a bushing pattern. It doesn't get maybe more than 12 to 16 inches tall, but it can really start to bush out like this, especially if you prune it appropriately. And the leaves don't get too, too long. I mean, they're pretty much going to max out at about an inch or so. I've grown some other varieties where the lettuce leaves, that's the name of it, lettuce leaf basil. And so you can imagine it was bigger than my entire head. So this is a very nice compact one, really good for containers. Perhaps if you're an apartment, windowsill gardener, this can be one that looks really beautiful, but it's a beautiful ornamental edible. So you can actually start to use it. So when it matures out, it kind of has this nice sort of dome shaped bushiness that is really good and the flavors there too. So you really can't beat it. Number three on our list is one of my personal favorites just for the color alone, dark opal basil. Dark opal basil is one that I actually used to grow when I was doing micro greens for chefs at high end restaurants because obviously that color is just so amazing. So it's really high in anthocyanins, which is the the pigment or the compound that colors something nice and purple like this. But the flavor is still there. It has this beautiful sort of ruffled patterning to it. It doesn't get too tall, maybe like 18 inches or so. And it's just an amazing one. Use it for garnishes. You can use it just as normal basil, but you know, take advantage of the color. If you're going to grow this, you're growing it because you like that color. You can use this as a nice garnish on the plate, throw it in a cocktail or something like that. The thing that's interesting about this is it does have a little of variegation. So there's sometimes it reverts and you're seeing even just right here, you're seeing sometimes it gets a little green and that's just normal, about 10 ish percent of the leaves will start to like flip back to their green color. But most of the time you're going to get a beautiful, beautiful purple bush. Basil number four is Greek Yovani basil. Honestly is very similar to the spicy bush. I believe it's just an organically grown version of the spicy bush. I don't know if there's a real differentiator as far as its characteristics. I will say when I compare them, they are strikingly similar. This one's a little bit more green, but that may just be because it got a little bit better care at the nursery. Regardless, it was a different variety. I wanted to showcase it. It's going to have a similar growth pattern where it kind of domes out maybe 14 to 18 inches. The leaves relatively small. You can see they're about about an inch at the maximum and quite delicious, quite pungent. Don't need a lot of this one because that basil spice is there. So a little of this goes a long way, which is great because it's really not one that you're going to have a ton of. So you can just use a little bit of it and you're good to go. Basil number five is for you variegated plant lovers. This is Pesto Perpetuo. So this is a basil that effectively is a natural selection differentiation off of this Greek columnar variety because it has a very similar growth pattern. It's going to grow up, up and sort of stable this way. It's not going to bush out too much. And it also has the same characteristic as the Greek columnar in that it's not going to produce a ton of flowers. That's why they call it Pesto Perpetuo, right? Because you can use it for pesto. You don't have to beat the flower buds to harvest because it's not going to make them. So another really good one if you want a low maintenance, but also beautiful variegated variety of basil that you can be using for pesto is pretty much all summer long. Basil variety number six, actually one of the coolest ones in the biggest pot is African blue basil. This is a sterile variety. It's a stable cross. It cannot produce seeds, but it will produce, as you can see, tons and tons of flowers. It's a perennial. So if you're in a climate that won't winter kill it, it's going to just grow year round. It'll go into a huge bush. It's absolutely amazing for pollinators. This is one that you could grow some other varieties of basil for the kitchen. You could grow this one for the pollinators, throw it in an area of your garden with full sun and dude, they are going to love it. I can't tell you how much I love watching bees go to town on an African blue basil. One of my friends actually has one that's maybe, I don't know, it's like this big and the bees are, it's their second home. That's where they live. That's where they get all of their pollen. And it's amazing. I mean, it's just a fantastic one. They call it blue basil because the leaves do start out blue and then they get greener as they mature. The veins, if you look carefully on some of these, will still have a purplish tinge to them. So that's how it gets the African blue basil sort of moniker. The other thing that's interesting about them is flavor-wise and even smell-wise, it kind of has like a camphor smell and it's a little bit more of a solid leaf. So it's much more hearty and sort of almost like a succulent-esque type of leaf. Flavor-wise, it has that kind of like, I don't know how to describe the flavor of a camphor, but that's what it looks, that's what it tastes like. So look that up. It's really good. I mean, this one to me is a must have in your garden, even if you don't use it for food. It's a pollinator plant, guys. Our seventh basil variety is Thai basil. This one is the Siam Queen variety. I don't know about you guys, but I am a huge Thai food fan. I am definitely a Vietnamese food fan and getting some basil and chopping into my bowl of pho is one of my favorite things to do on the planet earth. So this one I would grow simply to add into some homemade pho recipes. But you know, this variety or the one I got at the nursery was a little beat up. We'll see if it comes back to life. But beautiful flavor. It sort of has this like licorice-y vibe to it. Yeah. I mean right out of the gate you're getting like, like those old candies like Good & Plenty. It tastes kind of like a Good & Plenty, that anise licorice flavor, which some people don't like. I personally find it nice in small amounts. It's one of those foods I can't have a lot of, but I can have enough to enjoy a bowl of pho, for sure. It's going to have these beautiful purple flower heads coming out that are amazing. You just can't beat it. I mean, everyone, in my opinion, has to be growing Thai basil. Our eighth and final basil variety, at least for this video, cause there are literally so many, you can't even cover them in three videos, is Tulsi, also known as holy basil. So as you can tell by the name, it does have significance in Indian culture, or Hindu culture, especially as an Ayurvedic or medicinal herb. I don't know a lot about that. All I know is that it's a wonderful basil to grow. It's very prolific. It's a great pollinator basil. It'll go wild. It's an excellent container plant. The leaf patterning is a little bit different. So if you do want to kind of mix it up visually speaking, you kind of have this like jagged look to the leaves, which is really good. And then just flavor-wise, let's go and do our Epic Taste Test. Flavor-wise, it is close to a Thai basil, but I would say the anise flavor is muted a little bit and there's sort of like a hearty fullness to it that is not really present in the Thai basil. So anyways, a fantastic one. Try to get your hands on some Tulsi. It's typically a little bit harder to find, but if you can get it, any of these basil plants, you can propagate forever, which I'll do a video on in the future. So as soon as you get it, you have it for life. There we have it guys. Eight basil varieties to know and love, to add to your garden, to experiment with in different ways. I'm actually going to give you a ninth, which is one I'm not growing right now, but it's, it could actually be my all time favorite and that would be lettuce leaf basil. There's a picture of me holding a lettuce leaf basil leaf over my entire head basically. It is no joke like this big. Insane. Probably the biggest leaf lettuce I've ever seen. What's interesting about it though is the flavor is very similar to a Genovese basil. It's just a little bit muted. I don't know why that is perhaps because of the size of the leaf sort of mutes the flavonoids within it. I have no idea. But if you do prefer maybe a little bit of a milder basil that looks insane, then definitely check out lettuce leaf. But that's it for today's video. If you like this style of video where I'm rounding up different varieties of common plants, let me know in the comments down below. And if you have a favorite basil variety that maybe I might not know about, dude, totally let me know in the comments cause I'm going to go run out to the nursery and buy it ASAP. All right, it's been Kevin from Epic Gardening. Good luck in the garden and keep on growing.