Lisa, I just read more about 'Marseillais' basil... super intense flavor in a dwarf plant. It'll be interesting to test it out vs. 'Pistou'... I'll have to put one in the front yard, one on the back deck, to keep the strains separate for seed saving. BTW, Stokes seed says 1 oz of basil seed will plant 160 flats, so those packets are definitely enough to share! Many sites put about 100 seeds per packet for home growers, so 1/8 to 1/4 tsp would do it. If anybody is interested, either let Lisa know or rummage in my goodie bag to find the packet and take out some seeds (there will be little zip bags & blank labels available as usual). :-)
Francine, I think you should try my "Hot & Spicy" basil seeds. I need to ask Dave what's needed to make a name official so I can get it into the database -- "hot & spicy" is what I've been calling them, and I haven't found anything like them among named varieties. The small pointed leaves taste like an intense thai basil with a hot, peppery kick (like the difference between regular "Greek Basil' and 'Hot & Spicy' greek basil, hence my choice of name). They have upright stalks with small white blooms. The leaves are smooth, not fuzzy like I think Holy Basil is (?). At any rate, if you use thai basil and hot peppers together in your cooking, you need to try this one!
'Hot & Spicy' basil is one I've been growing since Chantell passed along a few precious seeds to me. The packet said they were from Goree Island, Senegal, giving them an additional significance, as that location is infamous as a one-time center for the African slave trade. There's some debate as to whether it really was a "gateway" or if more slaves passed through other areas, but at the least it was a busy port, so who knows where this basil could have originated.
