Fresh coriander seeds

C

charley2

Well-known member
DD is a wonderful eclectic gardener and among her flowers and herbs are cilantro plants. In the south they bolt early in the heat so she has lots of little seeds now. She picked them and gave me a sample. They have a wonderful piquant citrussy flavor--would be good added to a salad. And then she has pickled them to ferment and have another flavor that went well with our Thai dinner the other night.
 
In my previous garden, the days were so long and sunny and the air was so hot, I could not grow cilantro as it always bolted. I have used coriander seeds for years but found that the seeds from my bolts were far better than what I had been buying. So I started planting cilantro just for the seeds. I've never been sure why there was such a difference as I did think seeds stored well; I guess I was wrong. I grind them in the little electric guy and use them in all sorts of recipes. (even oatmeal cookies) I recently found an old jar with a few of them in it and even at this age (12 years) they are still better than the store-bought brands.
 
I’ve never been able to grow cilantro. I keep thinking I should try planting it in the winter and forget. It always makes me wonder how it can be such a staple In Mexican food as it’s an even a hotter climate there.
 
I have thought about this for years. I think my problem was the combination of long days and the heat. OUr days will be so much longer than Mexico experiences. In central Canada, I certainly could not grow it in winter but it would work on the west coast.
 
Being in California and able to grow most anything, makes me especially annoyed I can’t grow cilantro as I use it often. It’s the heat, once the heat comes it faints dead away. My friend plants it late winter and she gets a spring crop, but as soon as the heat comes it’s done. I’ve tried it in containers on the porch out of the hot full sun of summer, but nope. It refuses.
 
What about dill? It is another cantakerous one. In central Canada we couldn't keep it down, grew like weeds. In eastern Can, I gave up, but I actually grew it in the Caribbean in a pot facing east, in the winter. I really have come to learn how lots of heat and long days of sun, work only for very 'special' plants. Where I am now, in the far west and right on the ocean, facing west and under elm trees, lots of wind, I can't even get a pansy to cooperate.
 
Pansies bloom all winter but when summer arrives, so do the aphids. And we don't get the searing summer temps that the rest of Canada enjoys, so the pansies, oddly, should survive the summer.

I just wander aimlessly, enjoying the other gardens.

and so much for the gardening report.
 
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