Family: Mint (Lamiaceae)
Annual, harvest at 40 days and ongoing to frost. For the purpose of seed-saving, it takes 120 days from direct-seeding to winnowing.
(Temperate Tulsi) The plant is a bushy annual tea basil with small leaves, purple flowers, powerfully aromatic. This plant is of East African origin, and India is right across the way. Among all basils (including Ocimum basilicum) in my experience, this one is the shortest season, most frost-hardy cultivar. I’ve also seen these self-seed over the seasons, which is unusual among basils. We tested this cultivar and confirmed the eugenol marker, then ran it for genetic analysis to identify it as Ocimum africanum. This is the holy basil my wife and I grow for ourselves to make into tea. We find it very satisfying, with aroma most appealing. Drinking tulsi tea in the morning is a fantastic way to get started. Prepare a flat of potting soil or a fine seedbed in spring and scatter seeds on surface, then press in and keep evenly moist and warm until germination, which is rapid. Transplant or thin to 1 foot apart.
Packet contains 50 seeds