I have run out of ordinary sweet basil from an earlier post (coming soon) but have more Thai basil - variety "Siam Queen". I have some spares after potting up some young plants - which are now growing faster than I can eat them. This is not ordinary "sweet" basil like you get in supermarkets.

These are only just potted up in fresh compost in individual pots, so you can just water them (and eat them) for a while. In some weeks they will outgrow their small pots and then you should pot them on. You can keep them going all summer, but they are tender annual so don't expect them to live forever.

Some of the plants are starting to flower. Unlike ordinary basil which has boring white insignificant flowers, thai basil has pink flowers on purplish stems and the leaves near the flowers go purplish too. It's quite ornamental - but best to cut back from time to time to keep the young leaves coming.

Don't believe basil has to be tortured like supermarkets do - cramming millions of plants into one tiny pot. A single one will make a large bushy plant (easily 1ft x 1ft) if you keep potting it into a bigger pot as it grows. You can also root the shoots in water to make more plants yourself.

Basil likes strong sunlight and warmth, so probably keep inside in a bright kitchen window or conservatory. They're very happy outside in pots in summer, but in my experience get immediately eaten by slugs if I plant them in the ground, so probably don't do that! That said, this is the year for that if you fancy it.

I will divide my spare plants to satisfy demand.

I also have ordinary sweet basil and a red leaved one coming soon, so talk to me if you're interested in those. At the time of posting they're not potted up individually: I will do that in due course.

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Thai basil plants (Hatfield AL10)