Growing Basil Seeds

Basil is an herb often used in cooking. There are many kinds of basil. There are sweet basils, purple-leafed basils, lemon basils, and specialty basils. Cinnamon Basil falls into the specialty group. Cinnamon Basil has reddish stems, purple flowers, and small- to medium-sized dark green leaves. The plants can grow as much as 3 feet tall and 3 feet wide. The leaves have a cinnamon-like taste and odor.

Using Cinnamon Basil

You can use Cinnamon Basil in any recipe that calls for basil. The sweet flavor is very good when used with other fruity flavored herbs. Pick the leaves and use them in cooking or put them in bottles of olive oil to make cinnamon-flavored oil. The oil would be good to use for frying apples or bananas. You can add this herb to your apple pie fillings, and it tastes great added to an apple sauce or raisin sauce for pork or ham. You can also freeze the leaves in an ice cube tray with water. Then pop them out after they freeze and store them in a plastic bag in the freezer. Drop these herb cubes into soups or sauces to add basil flavor. Cinnamon Basil can be used to make a refreshing tea.

Cinnamon Basil is good for uses other than cooking, too. Some garden pests don’t like the smell of it, so gardeners grow it just to keep bugs out of their gardens. On the other hand, most people like the smell of Cinnamon Basil. For that reason, it is sometimes used to make potpourri. Potpourri is a mixture of things that give off a pleasant smell, like cedar shavings, dried flowers, cinnamon bark, and dried herbs, such as Cinnamon Basil. Leave a basket of potpourri in a room, and soon the nice fragrance fills the room.

Testing Your Design

The best way to test your plant growth chamber design is to try growing plants in it. Your plant growth chamber is intended to work in outer space, so Park Seed Company will give you some Cinnamon Basil seeds that have actually been in outer space. The space-exposed seeds flew on a space shuttle and orbited the Earth for almost two weeks. You will also receive some Cinnamon Basil seeds that stayed on Earth. The seeds that stayed on Earth are called the "control group."

To test your plant growth chamber, grow the space-exposed Cinnamon Basil seeds next to the Cinnamon Basil seeds that stayed on Earth. Before you plant your seeds, make a list of all the questions you hope to answer. Think about how you will know if your plant growth chamber is working correctly. Think about what differences you might look for between the space-exposed seeds and the control seeds.

Plant and grow the space-exposed seeds and the control seeds exactly the same way. Make sure you carefully label your seeds and plants. Do not mix them up!