🌿 Basil
King of the kitchen windowsill — the more you pinch, the bushier it grows.
Basil at a glance
Is Basil frost tolerant?
Here it is grown as a windowsill pot, so frost is not part of the picture. Keep it somewhere that stays between 16 and 30°C.
What temperature does Basil grow best in?
It grows best between 16 and 30°C. Below 10°C it stops growing altogether, and above 34°C it slows down.
How many days does Basil take to mature?
About 28–38 days. That is a typical figure: it needs roughly 270 °C·d of warmth above 10°C, so a warm season gets it there sooner and a cool one later. The city calendars below give the sow and harvest dates for each place.
What the numbers mean
These are the actual parameters this game runs on. Growth is driven by growing degree days: each day contributes max(0, min(mean temp, 32) − 10), and Basil is ready when that total reaches 270. That is why the same seed takes a very different number of days in Dublin and in Guangzhou.
| Base temperature | 10°CBelow this, the plant accumulates no growing degree days at all. |
|---|---|
| Degree days to maturity | 270 °C·dThe heat budget it must accumulate before it is ready to pick. |
| Comfortable range | 16–30°CWhere it grows without stress. |
| Frost damage below | -20°CLeaves start taking frost damage below this low. |
| Killed below | -30°CBelow this it does not come back. |
| Heat stress above | 34°CAbove this the plant slows down and stops setting fruit well. |
| Typical time to harvest | 28–38 days |
| Yield per bed | 6 bunches |
Things worth knowing
- Basil is a cousin of mint, with over 60 varieties from Thai to lemon basil.
- Flowering turns the leaves bitter, so gardeners pinch off every flower spike.
Where and when to sow Basil
Pick your city to see the months when Basil scores well against that city's real climate records: