Welcome to the Gardner's World magazine,

and I'm going to share why I love growing basil.

If you like spending time in the kitchen as much as in the garden, then growing herbs is a real winner.

Even for non-gardners,

they can be the gateway into gardening. A pot of herbs on a window sill can soon turn into a small herb garden, then a veg patch, and before you know it, your weekends are planned around spending

more time outside with your hands in the earth or afternoons in the greenhouse

sowing seed. And basil is one of the most versatile, flavoursome and useful herbs you can grow.

The origins of the word basil actually stem from the Greek word vasilias, meaning king,

and it seems a good fit to me because, and this might be a slightly bold and controversial statement,

basil is perhaps the king of herbs.

Growing basil isn't too tricky.

It can be a little fussy, but if you give it the right conditions, it will thrive.

Keep it in a sheltered and lightly shaded position, avoiding the heat of the midday sun in summer.

Plants need to be well watered as they'll soon wilt if allowed to dry out.

But make sure drainage is good and take care when watering not to splash the leaves to avoid disease.

When sewing, I found that basil isn't all that keen on being transplanted, so I sew them directly into pots rather than seed trays first.

I pinch out the tips regularly, as they're growing, to promote new growth.

Tomatoes and Basil are natural companions, both on the plot and the plate. I like to maximise

space on my balcony by growing a container with basil, a bush tomato and some vibrant orange

French marigolds to attract more pollinators and fend off whitefly. The three grow well together,

needing similar conditions, and if you pick a trailing tomato

variety like Tumbling Tom, they look wonderful as they cascade down the side, and they don't

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