Basil, just like many hundreds of thousands of varieties herbs also has many many varieties. Some basil have leaves very small (less than an inch in size), while other basil types can have giant leaves bigger than an open hand. Basil, by its nature, prefers sunlight most of the day, or at least 8-10 hours. My basil has never had thick, or tough leaves at any time, and it see sun from the rise, to about 3pm.

I agree. There are many different species of basils. My basils (in the subtropics, where sun can be fierce) get full sun in summer from about 5am to 7pm. And they love it. If basil is in shade, the stems will be long and spindly and sparse of leaves because they'll be reaching out for the sun.

I am wondering whether your basils are just tiny seedlings, and the leaves you are looking at aren't the true leaves, but the cotyledons, the first leaves that appear after germination.

No, these plants were over a foot tall and they eventually bolted. I have them where they will get partial shade. My garden gets sun from sun up to about 7 or 8 during the middle of the summer. I have these on my deck and they get sun to about 2.

The leaves were so tuff that it wasn't edible. We tried to use it and it added an awful texture to whatever we put it in. We'd end up picking pieces of basil out of our mouths.

Maybe it wasn't a good basil type. As mentioned, there are many leaf size varieties. The biggest I grew here, were 4 foot tall, and you could use a single leaf as a roll up for a sandwich. The 1 foot tall bushy basil with small leaves, was a made into great pesto. Growing in a container may have had an adverse effect. Although there are dozens of types of green leaf basil, the soil and nutrients that its planted in has a lot to do with the end result. In most cass, I prefer to start mine from seeds that I get from reputable sources. Your fairly sure of what you are growing then.

richc-

I'm not sure what part of NY State you're in but my corner (Western NY State) had pretty near drought conditions last summer. At my house it rained only 3 times between the end of May and September sometime - not normal for here at all. Gardening was a challenge and some plants didn't do as well as others. My basil stayed rather stunty, it tasted ok but it didn't make a foot in height at all. Perhaps you had a poor quality basil combined with hard growing conditions. Combined it would have resulted in some poor tasting basil.

FataMorgana