I don't live in Texas but have grown basil in pots many times here in the Pacific Northwest. I have the best results using a very large pot and always in a sunny spot (you might need a bit of protection in your climate). Don't let the plant flower -- keep snipping off the flower stalks. Harvest the basil frequently -- full stems -- and the plant will continue to produce. I haven't had a problem with insects but it's something you should watch out for.

I usually grow Italian culinary basil, which gives a good yield, but if you have room for several pots it might be fun to try different varieties. Another option is to pick up a basil plant at Trader Joes for a few dollars and keep it going for as long as you can -- mine have lasted a surprisingly long time. Then get another plant when the first one putters out. Bon appetit!

Basil does really well here in containers. During hot weather, I would move my plants so they got shade during the hottest part of the day. I grew some really large leaved type that started as a box of fresh organic basil from Trader Joe's - it came true to seed too. When I buy fresh herbs, I put them in water, and they often root on the windowsill

but I lost all my herbs to Hurricane Helene 😞 because of the salt water.

Hoping to possibly start some stuff in my Earthboxes tho.

And I always made pesto in my Cuisinart or a blender. I prefer the food processor, since it's wider and chops everything more evenly without having to stop and mix.

My go-to recipe is from Mollie Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook - I often use walnuts and supplement the basil with fresh marjoram or oregano :

https://delightfullydabbling.blogspot.com/2011/08/basil-pesto-la-moosewood-and.html

I also grow basil in a pot, part of the day full sun, part shadow, and it's really happy except that the snails adore it. It's just, um, garden variety basil. Not sure if it's a perennial or just an annual that doesn't die off with no frost. At a guess, it's probably what they call "sweet basil" though it's a bit peppery. It's one of my favorite herbs. That's what I'd use for pesto, though that could certainly include Einportlander's (whose tips are good) "Italian culinary" basil. If you buy a start (or a packet you can seed like Carol did) you can taste it and see if it's what you like--you can probably taste in the store if you ask.

Whatever you do, do not use Thai basil as it's a very different flavour. But, if you have a food processor you will find it easier and quicker than a mortar and pestle, unless you have an Asian style one, which is still not as convenient as a food processor.

I use Italian Genovese basil grown from seed. Germination is good and fast. I have to grow it in a pot under glass to get sufficient heat. I make my pesto in a food processor too. It's a matter of moments compared with a mortar and pestle.

I don't dsagree with the Food Processor (the only way I've done it), but given that the mortar and pestle set is on its way, I think you could learn a lot by making micro-batches, smaller than even a mini-FP's minimum to work. Just how much of this and that you use is personal. Knowing how much you like crushed vs. cut on the vegetative matter, etc. Have fun with it!

I live in a similar climate to you and I grow basil in pots every year. I just direct sow when it warms up. Basil likes the heat, so it can be a little slow to get going. As mentioned above, don't let it go to flower. I do also grow Thai basil because my husband is one of those unfortunate people who think cilantro tastes like soap. It makes a decent subsititute.

My husband dislikes basil and is obsessed with arugula pesto. I love it too. Remember you can make pesto with any herb, nuts, cheese, or no nuts and cheese. Experiment. Have fun. Don't get too serious about it!

I grow potted sweet basil in part sun/part shade. I do use a mini food processor for pesto, but, as plllog mentioned, your mortar/pestle should work in small batches.

Trader Joe’s here sells potted basil year round for around $4…good deal!

ETA - I remembered this and just found it…FWIW.

https://www.thekitchn.com/best-pesto-method-skills-showdown-23345584

Also, Ina G has a good recipe for pesto using both walnuts and pignolis, but I use less oil than she does.

Italian basils tend to be best, like the standard basil and I am very fond of lettuce leaf basil. It's quite like the standard, but grows much bigger leaves. There's a whole lot of other basils too, I've grown most of them out of various mixes. Some have tiny leaves, some have more other flavors like anise, cinnamon, citrus, some pretty colors like purple and red... but really the standard basil works fine. If you like, you can kick in some parsley and/or marjoram and still be traditional.

I too am a container grower. I would suggest you do a couple successions if you can. I've found it grows well if kept trimmed, watered, fed.. but at some point in the summer it just hits that too hot streak and basil starts to bolt.. then later in the summer it cools down enough that a second round of basil can grow into the fall.

Pine nuts are best, but can be expensive. I've subbed in walnuts well, and cashews can work. Almonds can work, but leave less flavor profile. Sunflower kernels and pistachios seem to kick in their own flavors.

I make all sorts of non-basil not-pestos. A lot used fresh, and a lot of pucks for the freezer for the winter. Kind of any "soft" green can make a nice pesto. Nasturium leaves make a peppery one, the flowers make a pretty peppery one. Parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme with walnuts or hazelnuts, no cheese. Green goddess pucks of parsley, chives, tarragon, somtimes green onions and chervil- with anchovies in their oil, no nuts or cheese. These pucks can just dress pasta on their own or get blended into a mayo/sour cream mix to make dressing.

You will have a lot of fun with you mortar and pestle. I have several of them — different sizes and materials. I bet I have five. Oh my. Maybe I will line them up for a photo shoot one of these days. The one I use the most is probably the large, very heavy stone one. Some dark stone - perhaps granite. You can make delicious pounded spearmint for mojitos, condiments. You can pound tegether the Thai bird chilies, garlic, sugar…. for Thai sauce and Thai vinaigrette for cellophane noodle and shrimp salad.

Pesto is fantastic. We make it and usually grow our own sweet and Genovese basil in warm weather. What people have said about picking it frequently is absolutely what to do. We put it on home made pizzas (fresh basil leaves) and you can put basil pesto atop lasagne and with béchamel sauce to really gild the lily.

Basil and basil leave are very sensitive to cold. Keep that in mind when storing any leaves in the fridge.

I found some things on my iPad when I just searched pesto:

The last two pages are from one of my cookbooks, I think from Genoa.

First text translation via Google

I suspect Lars and Nancy can do a better job ;-)

Next page translation via Google:

I don’t care for the taste of walnuts in pesto, so used pine nuts or pignoli. You do not need very many, but I would spring for some. They are usually available in grocery stores. , and I see that they are available on A*.

➡️ https://www.amazon.com/s?k=pignoli+nuts&crid=21YQJHTS2B8OG&sprefix=Pignoli%2Caps%2C97&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_7

Instead of walnuts, I would substitute unsalted, freshly shelled pistachios for the pignoli, if you didn’t want the expense of pine nuts.

We make ours with a good amount of quality EVOO — extra virgin olive oil. because you want it to be more on the runny side, not so much paste.

I have made home baked lasagna with pesto and béchamel. IIRC, you make and bake the lasagna, and i believe you want to add the layer of pesto, followed by the béchameltowards the end — perhaps the last 20 or 25 minutes of baking. It is absolutely delicious, but I warn you that it is rich. If you drink wine with it and tend to have any problems such a GERD, you might want to have a small portion.

I first had lasagna this way when on vacation. Almost as soon as I returned home, I set about replicating it from memory. It turned out very well, but warning, it surely is rich.

You could make a small batch for practice, then make a regular size pan for a dinner party.

We freeze summer made basil for a plate of summer.

Oh, and another thing you might want to do is to serve/include some slices of boiled potato with your basil and pasta. That is very Ligurian.

Have fun!

This sounds super fun!

You can never have too much basil, but grow some sage and parsley and make sage pesto and persillade.

There’s such a lot of toppings and sauces made from some combination of herb + nut + alum (garlic, onion, shallot, etc) + cheese + salt, either minced or chopped or pounded.

https://aharmonyofflavors.blogspot.com/2014/01/gremolata-or-persillade-or-pesto-or.html?

Even within “pesto” there are many kinds.

https://giadzy.com/blogs/tips/beyond-basil-the-different-types-of-pesto-in-italy

Glad you found this forum. Would love to see your basil + etc as it grows.

Another 'pesto' I make is with wild garlic, Allium ursinum, a native here that is a 'weed' in my garden. Had some on Saturday night out of the freezer, dated last May. I added chopped sauted red peppers for a more substantial pasta sauce.

Maybe I will line them up for a photo shoot one of these days.

Petalique I would love to see your mortar and pestles.

Thank you for the translations!

And thank you to everyone who left ideas/links.

This project will obviously take months, so I plan to update from time to time as things move along, meanwhile I hope to learn more as others add posts.

I ordered these based on the advertised compact size of the plant which they say only gets a few feet tall.

That looks perfect!

With 1750 seeds, looks like you're set for life LOL

There’s also a so-called winter zpesto with Italian parsley substituted for the basil, and walnuts for the pignoli.

Not that it’s ever that cold around here, I do think that the winter version suits the season — we do have a Mediterranean climate in coastal SoCal.

You've had so many ideas already. Where pine nuts are concerned, beware of Chinese ones. Not the same quality. I often use almonds as pine nuts are so expensive here. You can also freeze your pesto when your basil is flourishing and you've got too much! Lol. I love different herbs and nuts according to the season. At the moment I would prefer walnuts and sage. Have to un!

Thank you. I am reading with interest the different approaches to nuts in pesto. I confess to having neither the knowledge nor the experience to make an informed decision. I have walnuts, and unroasted unsalted almonds, and roasted salted cashews. At the moment I have no pine nuts, but the actual culmination of the project is months away after I start, grow, and harvest my basil. The mortar and pestle lends itself to the possibility of small experimental batches so perhaps when the time comes I can try different nuts and either come up with a favorite or find that my nut-uneducated taste buds might not notice differences.

My Mom was born in the Genoa area. I grew up eating pesto before it was popular to do so. I remember her using a mortar & pestle to make it when I was pretty young, so probably early 1960's. Then she got a blender and finally a food processor. If we had cream in the house, she'd add a splash. More often she would just add some butter. Always pignolia nuts. My Mom said that her Mom added small chunks of boiled potatoes. When my DH and I were in the Liguria region of Italy, we had 'Trofie al Pesto' which included potatoes. Delicious!

I make pesto often in my food processor. I'm sure that slowly crushing the basil leaves in a mortar will create a creamier sauce. Perhaps that's why my Mom started adding a splash of cream to her machine made pesto.

Happy pesto making!

The genovese variety is a much more compact plant and I think is close to what is used in Liguria (even there, there are slight variants). It is really easy to grow from seed. Lining the Ligurian hillsides near the sea are rows and rows of terraced greenhouses, each growing a carpet of the delicious leaves. You can see some of the videos on Youtube. We have a place over the border in the French portion of what used to be Liguria, so we pass by these often.

The advantage of the mortar and pestle is that it can avoid the bitterness introduced by the harsher blades of a blender or food processor. It can also release more flavors from the leaves and reduce the blackness from bruising. I enjoy it, as czarinalex mentioned, with trofie (easy to make), potatoes and green beans or over some fresh made gnocchi.

My hack is that I go to TJs or another supermarket (vegetable section) and buy a potted genovese basil plant. You can simply transplant it into a larger pot and put it in a sunny window during the winter. Then you can transplant it outside to a container or bed. They can get victim to bugs and slugs/snails, so a ring of copper foil and some non-toxic soap-based spray does the trick. As others said, just trim the blooms.

You can make pesto without pine nuts, which is called pistou in Provence and ex-Ligurian portions of France. The classic soupe au pistou is a great introduction. You will find almonds used in the South or in alternatives like pesto di Trapani (from Sicily).

I know pine nuts are associated with pesto, but I think they are overrated. Even toasted, I don’t find them all that special. I often make pesto with walnuts. It would be interesting to make small batches of pesto with different nuts - almond, hazelnut, pistachio - and see what happens.

Absolutely. That's why I often use almonds. They taste good and have a nice little bit of bite to them.

From my experience of growing basil, I think it's more the growing conditions that determine the size of the plant and the leaves. When it's really happy, then the leaves are bigger and more luxurious.

The new mortar and pestle. It is small, it only holds a pint, but I think enough to make a small batch of pesto at a time.

Last frost date here is around March 15. I'm thinking I should start the seeds inside maybe only 2-3 weeks before

because the Jiffy peat pellets are pretty small.

I tried those pellets once and didn't like them. I agree with floral. Just wait until it's warm and start them directly in the pots. Basil is pretty unfussy, except when it comes to cold weather.

Returning the pellet kit and will direct seed in a few months when it starts to warm up again. Thank you Floral and Cooper for your valuable advice in keeping the Pesto project on track.

We don't know where you are located

In the U.S., in Texas, south of Houston.