Do you over water it? Most plants can survive pretty well on their own and people sometimes just do too much for them with good intentions.
My new "Square Foot" garden still has snow on it. It will be April before I can start working it and May for frost free.
Well I've tried at least 4 times now. So I under watered one and it died. Then another time gave it plenty of water and it died. So I have no clue... I've been lucky to grow vegetables but any type of cilantro and basil and thyme dies everytime!
Try planting it in the ground if you can, water it every few days for the first 2 weeks then only if it doesn't rain for a week or if it looks like it is wilting, preferably in a place that gets a lot of sun but maybe some shade in the afternoon. Make sure that you harvest pretty often so it doesn't go to seed.
I have all ways! I live in Florida so with the rain season for months of endless downpours it's hard to control the water it receives. I've always tried to clip when the flowers start too. I even did the cotton swab inside each flower to pollinate each other to encourage growth. I'm trying again this spring so hoping it goes well!
Maybe built a clear roof over it to control the monsoon season. I use a small paint brush liken out of kids water color paint to pollinate in my greenhouse;
don't pollinate to encourage growth, once the plant is pollinated it makes seeds and dies, if you want to collect seeds from the plant you could do that but not if you want to continue harvesting the leaves. I should have asked where you are located before offering advice, lol...if you get a lot of rain and think the plant could be dying because of it then plant it in a well draining pot and if you are getting lots of rain you could either cover it or put it somewhere it won't get wet for a while.
I may skip the vegetable garden this year and go with wildflowers, only because I want more bees and butterflies!
They like a warm sunny location. They thrive in hot weather but don't overwater them. I love growing Basil!
Seeds have been ordered! Basil, it always seems to grow fine indoors in a pot for a season. I've not tried growing it outdoors, it makes a great houseplant.
Vegetable gardens have flowers and attract all sorts of bees and butterflies. Cities may lack those sorts of things but out in the counties we have an abundance. We find ourselves fighting off carpenter bees, hornets, and such. Butterflies don't cause harm but caterpillars (mostly from moths I believe) will defoliate and kill trees, flowering plants, etc, and need to be controlled.
Great advice, one year I was loving the beautiful white butterflies in the area, then had to deal with an infestation of these all over my tomato plants:
Just finished my first tilling in raised bed. Now have to get seeds, and will plant in the next couple of days.
We've come across a couple of regal moth caterpillars over the years. They're pretty amazing to see in person! I didn't kill those, they're too rare. But those tomato ones... ixnay! :-o
This is a tomato hornworm it does not turn into a white butterfly it turns into this A sphinx moth. If you see any tomato hornworms with these things on it Leave it alone, it is already dying and the things on it are the eggs of a parasitic wasp that can help control the population of the hornworms. Organic gardening 101, if you can, just let nature find its balance and then there will be less work for you and a healthier ecosystem overall.
Oh, and if this is is the white butterfly you have seen, they are solid green green caterpillars that tend to eat any sort of brassicas...cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, kohlrabi etc... and although I have never seen them in my garden, google tells me that they can also look like this, lol
Awesome! But a LOT of work Thank you for the clarification there I have seen both of those - the white butterflies and the moths. I made the wrong assumption that the big hornworms came from the white butterflies. So much to learn! I haven't seen the parasitic egg infestation, that looks interesting!
Most of the field is for Deer corn. We have a smaller plot behind the house that hubby and I work Nude in together!