HOW TO GROW CILANTRO
fresh herbs harvested from your garden
cilantro
also known as coriander is the herb used
worldwide to add aroma and flavour to
your dishes cilantro can be grown in
baking trays they can be grown in small
containers they can be grown along your
kitchen window
they can also be grown in the ground
in warmer places like California
cilantro can be grown almost year-round
and even in winters provided you
germinate the seeds indoors hot
temperatures will send the cilantro the
bold or create flowers so grow shot but
spaced out crops of cilantro in hot
conditions this means that you sow seeds
every four weeks to get a constant
harvest throughout the season now you
could be using any kind of potting soil
for your cilantro plants the one that we
are using is called Kellogg's patio plus
which should be available in your local
garden store we will be growing our
cilantro in a small but wide container
cilantro loves semi-shade you can also
grow it in full Sun but it will bold or
produce flowers quickly which we do not
need as we need to continually harvest
the fresh leaves which you use as a
spice so the seeds we will be using is
an organic slow bolt version of cilantro
which means that it will keep producing
leaves for a longer time even in hotter
conditions so what you do is take a few
seeds and place it in the palm of your
hands and gently split them in halves
you don't have to split all of them
cilantro seeds need to be split or
scarred for maximum germination rates
this is a step which a lot of us miss
leave some hole and some split so you
get a mix of both types of seeds for
germination use your fingers to split
each seed or at least 50% of them before
sowing
make some space to sow the seeds
and then sow the seeds evenly all over
the container surface you don't have to
be too particular about where the seeds
go we just make sure you're covering the
whole area
and remember that you need to split some
of the seeds before sowing
that's it almost done there we go now
just cover it with some soil and your
seeds are all set to germinate now and
cilantro loves a constant source of
irrigation like a drip irrigation system
it's going to produce a lot of lush
leaves as long as you keep your
container well watered and it's very
important to keep the container moist
till the seeds have completely
germinated in a few days usually about
ten days you will start seeing cilantro
shoots emerging cilantro is not damaged
by most insects like snails or slugs in
fact even other common garden insects
like aphids loopers and others leave
cilantro alone
in about two weeks or so you can begin
harvesting leaves from your cilantro
plant just use scissors to chop off the
top leaves
and there's an easy harvest cilantro
doesn't need any particular fertilizers
to grow you could use a high nitrogen
fertilizer to get bigger leaves but what
I usually do is use a good soil base
with lots of organic matter and I think
that's more than sufficient to grow
cilantro
you can smell the fresh cilantro as
you're harvesting it
and don't worry too much just keep
harvesting all the visible leaves there
we go that looks like a nice harvest and
remember that no matter how much you
harvest the cilantro plant is very
versatile and will keep sending out new
leaves for you to harvest so you can
harvest many times from a single growth
cycle of the cilantro plant
so as you can see a few days later the
cilantro leaves are back and we have
completed yet another harvest and be
harvested as much leaves as we had done
last time if not more and the cycle
repeats again the size philanthropy ant
is going to send out more shoots which
you can keep harvesting later
