FOW wrote:

I have some Italian ( green ) basil that I planted in a large pot.It is now
looking ready to pick, starting to flower.
Can I just pick the top off and some large leaves? Or should I just pull the
whole plant ?



The flowers should be removed, as some people say they change the taste.
Also, the flowers mean that the plant is ready to set seed, and once a
plant does that, its useful life is over and some plants will quit
trying to do anything more.

The leaves grow in clusters, with a stem coming through the middle. If
you pick the stem with its leaves, the adjacent leaves will form new
stems and the plant will get bushier. If you cut the whole plant, that's
probably the end of it, although basil will occasionally regrow from a
stump (not often enough to count on).

Picking leaves as above will lead to a dense bush-type plant with very
woody stems. The young stems can be chopped up and used for seasoning
before they become woody, so sometimes basil is sold as branches. If you
harvest it this way, you want to plant more basil often, because the
plant won't have time to keep up with the removal of branches during the
growing season. You can start basil through July for outdoor crops
(depending on your climate). Basil can be grown in pots in sunny
windows, but winter sun is not really enough to keep them going well and
the plants look pretty wimpy by spring. (You have some fresh basil
during that time, but the plants aren't very productive).