Basil Seeds are small seeds looking like chia seeds but they are a bit different in composition. Nevertheless, they have some great health benefits that can help you enjoy the perfect experience you must be seeking with them. They are rich in protein, carbs and have a large amount of fiber as well so they are pretty great. Being native to India, they were introduced to the world quite later but there are also Thai Basil Seeds that are pretty great with all the nutrients.
Being smaller in size, it is not easy to harvest them anyway and you will need to be particularly careful about that. They are not generally sensitive, but the size is an issue and you have to ensure that you are not wasting any of them. So, a few things that you will need to be particularly careful about while harvesting the Thai Basil Seeds are discussed below.
How to Harvest Thai Basil Seeds?
Harvesting is pretty easy and you just have to make sure that you are taking out the flower heads carefully. The seeds are inside the spent flower heads that have grown brown.
So, you can either handpick them individually or have some sheet underneath your plant and then shake them up so the spent flowers with seed in them can be shaken down and then collected on the sheet that you have below.
You will need to let the flowers head dry off for a few days in a warm but dry location. It would be better if you can put them under direct sunlight for a couple of days at some dry place and that will help you perfectly in drying out the flowers.
After that, you will need to take the seeds out and separate them from the flowers. To do that, you will have to crush them over the colander. Then you will have to pick off the old petals and chaff that is leftover and separate it from your seeds as well. This way, you will be able to make sure that there are no petals remains left in the seeds that would cause you troubles later.
Another thing that you can try out is putting the seeds with flowers in a paper bag and then shake them. This will separate the basil seeds from all the flowers that might be there. This way, you will not have to face any such problems with the seeds and they will be separated perfectly from the flower remains.
Moving forward, you can also try to crush the bag with a rolling pin and then separate them by slowly blowing on them in a shallow dish or you can choose some other method like handpicking to separate them. This will help you perfectly to have the right Thai basil seeds that you might be looking for.
How to Store Them
You will need to keep them in a sealed jar or plastic bag. It will be better if you can keep them airtight in cool and dark places to keep them intact and able to use for longer periods.