Let the seedlings grow until they’re at least 2 inches (5 cm) tall. Keep them consistently watered until they sprout. Place seeds in the garden bed and cover them with about a 1/4-inch (6mm) layer of soil. Here’s how to direct-sow the seeds in your garden. If you’re starting the seeds indoors, you’ll be transplanting it to the outdoors later on. Once you have prepared the cilantro seeds, you can either start cilantro indoors or outdoors. Remove them from the water and allow them to dry. After removing them from the husk, soak the cilantro seeds in water for 24 to 48 hours. How to Plant Cilantroīefore you plant them in the ground, prepare the cilantro seeds to increase the chances that they will germinate. To prepare them for planting, dry them naturally and prepare them for germination. To prepare coriander seeds for cooking, dry them in the oven on a low heat until they’re crumbly, then grind them into a powder. Just roll the seeds in your hand to remove the outer hull. When the husk turns brown the seeds are ready to harvest. The seeds come in pairs encased in a hard, round husk. If your cilantro seeds look familiar, that’s because they are also known as the spice coriander, which is a common addition to many cuisines. When it has bolted, cilantro gives us an opportunity to harvest the seeds and propagate the plant. When the plant bolts, the depleted leaves are no longer worth harvesting. Cilantro leaves at this stage, while edible, won’t have the same punch of flavor as when the plant is young. But as the plant starts to use its energy to blossom and make seeds, it shrinks and the flavor in the leaves begin to fade. What to Do When Cilantro Goes to SeedĬilantro’s delicate white flowers are a happy development for pollinators, and this is the stage when the plant begins to produce its delicious seeds. The plant will also grow smaller and leaves will take on a lacy, fern-like appearance. There is nothing about cilantro flowering that makes the plant inedible or toxic, but the leaves do lose much of their flavor. Some varieties to look for include Slow Bolt, Calypso, and Leisure. Slow bolting cilantro varieties tolerate heat a little better, and are slower to bolt in the summer heat. When one set of cilantro plantings is bolting, the next will be ready to harvest. To get around this and to continue to harvest throughout the growing season, practice succession planting. Ultimately, gardeners must accept that each cilantro plant has a short season. Though you can’t completely stop cilantro from bolting, you can delay it by cutting back immature flower stalks when they first appear. Water daily and move pots of cilantro to shadier areas of the garden during the hottest afternoon hours. Once you’re into the hot part of the summer, you can extend the life of your cilantro by keeping it as moist and cool as possible. Keep the soil cooler and help it retain moisture by mulching around the plants. It is the temperature of the soil that pushes cilantro to bolt. This will help to remove immature flowers before they have fully formed and slow down the bolting process a little bit. Remove leaves regularly from your cilantro plants. Plant in early spring and again in late summer to get two harvests under the best conditions. However, there are some things you can do to delay bolting or to work around it to your advantage: Plant cilantro in the shoulder seasonsĬilantro does best in spring and fall when the weather is cooler. It’s a fact of nature that cilantro will react to heat this way. It is impossible to completely forestall bolting. The plant is unable to tolerate the heat, and so proceeds to do the most logical thing. Why Does Cilantro Bolt?Īs an amazing survival mechanism, cilantro will bolt when temperatures heat up in late spring or summer, quickly producing stalks of little white flowers and seeds to ensure its own reproduction. You should be growing cilantro where it will get early morning or late afternoon sun, but be well-shaded during the hottest part of the day. The Ideal cilantro growing conditions are cool but sunny. Cilantro growing in soil that reaches 75 F (24 C) will bolt and go to seed. The most important thing to remember when growing cilantro is that it doesn’t like hot weather. Despite the growing popularity for this herb in cooking, many gardeners choose not to grow it, primarily because it seems to bolt, or go to seed so easily. Cilantro ( Coriandrum sativum) is used in a great many different dishes, particularly in Mexican and Asian cuisine.
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