In article ,
"Anny Middon" wrote:

I normally buy commercial plants for the garden, but this year I decided to
start some herbs from seed. Most of these were for my indoors herb garden
(most of which I lost when the neighbor feeding the cats while we were on
vacation forgot to water the houseplants), but I put a little parsley and a
little basil seedling in the outdorrs garden on Saturday.

The parsley looks fine, but something is eating my basil. I assume it's an
insect -- the little leaves are starting to look decidedly lacy.

Is there something I can put on them? Obviously I want to use the basil for
cooking, so most commercially available insecticides are counterindicated.

Should I put in commercially-grown basil? Or start more seedlings and wait
until they are bigger before planting them outdoors?

A couple of points that may be important:

1. Last year I put in a lot of zinnias (commercially produced seedlings)
that had much the same problem. I lost nearly all those plants.

2. I live outside Chicago. Our every-17-year cicada infestation is
starting. Is it possible it's cicadas eating my basil? If so, I'll give up
on basil until the end of the cicada infestation, the end of July or so.

Anny
Basil grows pretty fast, so I would recommend re-seeding. I and, I
believe Omelet (another poster), have found that our basil does better
in pots. If nothing else, start in pots and then you can, at least bring
them in at night to keep them from being chewed on.

- Bill
Coloribus gustibus non disputatum (mostly)