Big THANK YOU to both of you!
Donner, if you do want to propagate that particular basil, just let a couple of flower stalks go. I've found you can have 1 or 2 flower stalks and keep pinching back the other branches -- and the only leaves that will get bitter are the ones on the branch with the flower stalk. When the calyxes are brown and crispy, the seeds inside will be black... most of the seeds will stay put on the stem, so you can harvest all at once before frost by stripping them up off the stalk. Let them dry, then rub between your fingers or use a mortar & pestle to separate the seeds... I use a sieve that catches the big chaff and lets the seeds fall through, and then I just blow away the powdery chaff.
I do have a good stand of "Hot & Spicy" basil, and I'm letting half of it go to seed, so I'll have that one to share. That's the basil that originated from a few seeds Chantell obtained, marked "Goree' Island, Senegal." The small pointed leaves taste like a hot and peppery version of Thai basil, but the blooms are white. As far as I know it's not commercially available, so I do try to get a big batch of seeds from it every couple of years so I can spread it around!
