My basil plants are thriving too much.
This is my thai basil:
And in the same pot lemon basil:
I’ve topped them quite a lot, as you can see in the bushy growth pattern.
They already started flowering months ago, even before I put them into the big pot. I read online that you just have to snip them off, and done.
But there are basically only flowers coming, and I don’t want them to waste all their power into developing seeds.
Is this normal and just a part of their lives when they reach a certain size?
Thai basil is completely fine to let flower, but you want to pinch the tops early on lemon basil (and traditional genovese) so they keep producing leaves and don’t go bitter.
That lemon basil is a writeoff; you have to be proactive about the pinching or the plant will go all-in on dumping seeds.
I agree about proactive nature…when mine gets going, I pinch flower nodes off daily, Sometimes twice depending on how it’s doing.