Henry Rifle Forums

OK, guilty of clickbait. I sowed some wildflower mix for pollinators in the backyard earlier this year. I wanted to attract some insects for convenient macro photography. They have been growing nicely, and I noticed this week that many of the plants looked familiar, but not what I would expect for a wildflower. Many looked just like basil. I picked a leaf and crushed it. Yep, smelled just like basil. I've long ago thrown the bag away, but was pretty sure it was Burpee's Pollinator mix. I looked it up and sure enough, sweet basil was on the species list.

I assume this stuff is fine to eat, and may harvest a few plants from time to time to add to some dishes.

Sorry, not a very artistic image, just a quick shot to show what it looks like.




And, yes the other plants are doing the job of attracting insects.

Nothing wrong with gleaning from the woods and pastures when you can.
The ramps were good this year, we have basil, chives, ect planted around the place.
Last year we were able to harvest a huge puff ball mushroom and eat it. Wonderful.
Just be careful. I was gobbling Elder Berries from some bushes when my wife reminded
me that that are mildly toxic unless processed.

Well, I'm actually not planning on indiscriminately eating all my wildflowers in the yard. I'm just looking at eating the basil. My assumption is that there are no toxic look and smell a likes, or toxic varieties of basil. If I were in my 20s, I would just munch down on them without a second thought. In my 70s I'm a little more leery of doing something like this.

I'm tempted to get some known quantity basil seeds, and plant them where these are doing well, but it seems silly when I already have a bunch of well established plants that I can't imagine are anything different.

Well, I put a couple basil leaves from the yard on my sandwich for lunch today.

If I don't post again, you will know what happened.