I use our Brita for all potables and houseplant water. All of the basil I buy at the store goes bad rapidly. I haven’t been to the FM this year to get the good stuff. I have had success with growing it in containers on the deck, but that was in past. I hope to do that next year.
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I often transplant pots of basil from the grocery store, that were greenhouse basil, into the garden in May, once there’s no frost at night.
I’ve not had to transition it gradually. It usually does better outside.
It often lasts for 2 or 3 months before it goes to flower, depending on the weather.
I don’t have luck keeping basil healthy indoors for more than a week or so There isn’t enough direct light.
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That must be so frustrating! Anyhow, I have only ever kept basil in pots or planters (due to groundhog chomping the garden). And I haven’t run into the trouble you are describing but I have some possible clues to offer. Here goes.
I have bought all of my basil plants or seedlings from sources where the plants were kept outdoors at the time I bought them. So if the plants needed a chance to “harden off” to being outside vs being in a greenhouse, they were already acclimated. I have a hunch that @naf is onto something here.
My basil has always gotten chlorinated water from a hose or tap. Been fine.
Finally, the basil plants I have purchased have not been from a big box store. I figure that area greenhouses have the same local growing conditions as I do. So far, so good sticking with that hypothesis over the years.
Indoor basil gets all spindly and pale for me. It’s bye-bye basil when it’s no longer warm enough to keep the plant outside at least in the daytime.
That’s it. Please let us know if you unravel the mystery.
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It is. Immensely frustrating. All my basil planters have been sitting on my kitchen windowsill. The one time I splurged on a super-duper-special fancy FM planter with two kinds of basil and two kinds of mint, I had to sit it on our patio table to keep the rabbits away.
One of the basil plants showed signs of some sort of fungus almost immediately, and everything in the planter went to shit.
Did I mention we are experts in floracide?
IDK what’s going on. I’ve kept a single basil plant alive in Berlin in one of the darkest kitchens I believe we ever stayed at for well over a month. It never displayed that black shit at the leaf tips, and even when left to fend for its own for a long weekend trip, it always recovered.
All I want is some GD basil with my tomatoes while the season is still happening. Wah.
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Oh, yeah. Our supermarket pot of basil is currently perched on top of a former birdbath stand at the edge of our patio. We can’t keep it on the ground or it’s chomp, chomp, chomp.
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Here too, indoor basil died quickly. Outdoor, they are fine under the direct sun or in the shade. Basil are annual, so at times I let them flourished and next season the seeds would grow into plants again. Right now, I have a giant green variety and a purple variety for the colours.
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Hmm, sounds like the plants got the fungus in the shop already.
I stopped buying fancy ones from plant shops but the cheap pots in supermarket. They are the same, just different price tag.
Cut all the sick leaves and the top of the stem. Maybe if you change the soil (with fungus) with healthy soil, they can be saved. If not, try to just keep the soil moist but not too wet. Do you have fertilizer? Usually that helps.
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I don’t. Did I mention we don’t grow things? 
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From your description, it sounds like you’ve got Basil Downy Mildew, a relatively new disease that accidentally got imported to the US from Africa. If the undersides of the foliage gets grey patches, and all the leaves drop off suddenly, then that’s the issue.
Spores from this plague can remain in the vicinity, soil, planter box, etc. Part of the solution is to pitch the soil, sterilize the planter box with a 10% chlorine bleach solution for ten minutes, and wash it off. Use fresh soil and before you put the container back, wipe down the area with a disinfectant. As the spores may be elsewhere, nearby, this may not be enough.
The best solution is to plant a resistant variety. There are now several Basil Downy Mildew (BDM) resistant varieties, although it’s easier to find seeds than plants. Another solution is to grow indoors, under lights, away from any source of BDM spores.
If the top description doesn’t sound like BDM, you may have a soil fungus killing the plants. Follow the same disinfecting procedures mentioned above.
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That sure is a lot of work for one basil plant. Mayhaps I need to stick to buying stems/leaves at the FM or supermarket, and save the plant buying for my summers in Berlin, where neither of these diseases have affected my stash.
Thanks for your elaborate input!
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Interesting. Kinda points to soil pathogens
Not sure if I’m just lucky but I buy 5” pots of basil at TJs or Ralph’s, or Sprouts market all the time. I buy the fullest, most healthy looking one I can find and put the plant, in its own pot, in a slightly larger pot I fill with water and keep outside on our porch in the shade. As long as I remember to keep the larger pot filled with water, the plants will usually last up to a month, depending on how much of them I use for cooking. Outdoor temps here range from the 50s to as much as 100°F depending on year and season. If I forget, sometimes the plant will go a bit limp, but comes back quickly with more water.
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I think more and more growers are switching to resistant varieties. The seeds are not expensive, but losing a crop after the expense of getting them to market size is a real loss. I’ve been growing Prospera and Rutger’s Passion; both are resistant to Basil Downy Mildew.
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