Tag Archives: Cilantro

Cilantro Seeds Part 1

Garden, Herbs, Seeds, , ,

DSC02770 This cilantro seed bouquet is from our garden.  I took out all of the remaining plants around early June, and let them continue to dry in the house for about three weeks.

DSC03038 I placed t hem into a kitchen garbage bag and hung them for another week and a half or so.   Then I shook them in their bag and crushed them a little to get off easy to remove seeds and left them in t he bag.

DSC03174  After getting off the easy-to-remove seeds, I hand threshed the rest and kept them separate.  I put the stem above into my wood chipping pile outside in order to make mulch from them.

DSC03175 I could separate more seeds from such a mix by swirling, as if panning for gold.

DSC03186 The seeds on the left, which fell off of the stems, and had been cleaned up, appeared to be larger than the seeds on the right, which I had picked off the stems, at least to the naked eye.

DSC03188 I stored them separately, and the seeds on the left, we reasoned, were theoretically better for planting because they were larger, and the seeds on the right, which I pulled off of the stems could be use for coriander seeds.  (We actually do not use coriander seeds very much.)

Young coriander plants are the same as cilantro plants.   All of the plants died after they went to seed, and any cilantro was unavailable.   It looks as if I can keep a bit of coriander growing in the garden at all times, if my saved seeds grow, about which we will see.    I am not sure about  the breeding of the original seeds from which I got the plants from which I got the seeds.  I am not sure about the exact timing and the environmental limits within which the cilantro seeds might grow in our location ranges.

If they do grow, then we might become self-sustaining on cilantro.

 

 

Garden, April 4, 2014

Garden, , , , , , ,

DSC02178 After a bit over a week nursing this cold, I was happy to see the progress in the garden.  Several items have continued their bolting.  The cabbage flowers are blooming on two plants.   There seem to be small heads on a couple of plants, and I suspect that these will not bolt, because they may have been too undeveloped when the cold snap hit about a month ago.   The broccoli flowers look great.    One of the mesclun mix is blooming a nice white flower.  The cilantro is blooming white. Some lettuce flowers will open within a week.  The taller dill is budded in a green Queen Ann’s lace pattern.

It seems that there are several kinds of new plants that are growing together very well, providing each other with shelter from the warm afternoon sun.  It is a balmy 76 degrees on the shaded front porch, so one can imagine that the backyard plants may relish a bit of each other’s shade as they grow.

The plantains have started to grow again, though the dead parts look worse than ever.  I can probably cut them down, and separate off the stems for chipping more easily now!  It is time for me to get weeding in order to keep ahead of it.

 

 

 

A Garden Learning Curve

Garden, Kitchen, , , , , , , , , ,

Marjoram DSC01757 This marjoram plant is a real survivor.  Planted last fall, most of its sibling plants did not grow, or started to grow, and died.  I tasted a bit of its leaf, and this plant has a definite herbal flavor.  A few other plants may have survived, but the true marjoram is rather difficult to distinguish from a certain weed which is right now about the same size.  Lesson learned:  Plant marjoram in the early spring.

The fall planted plants which did not fare very well were chives, short dill, short radishes, dill which was lower lying right next to the back edge, carrots, beets, onions, sage, basil, sorrell, marjoram, oregano.

Oregano and either weeds or marjoram DSC01758 The shorter, more bluish plants are oregano.  They also have an herbal taste.  but the taller plants might be weeds, or they might be marjoram.  I cannot tell yet.

So I have to learn to tell some weeds from seedlings.  When I have just planted seeds, and a lot of them sprout soon afterward, this is easy.  When I have planted a lot of seeds, and they do not grow well, it is hard to tell if a plant is a weed or a sprout.

I need to learn to plant the seeds of different kinds at the right time to maximize their growth.   The plants which eventually grew fairly well were large radishes, larger dill, lettuce, parsley, cilantro.

I need to learn which plants are annual, and which are perennial.  For example, I understand that most vegetables are annual, and may even be planted several time a year.  But herbs can vary in this respect.  For example, sorrel is perennial, parsley is biannual, and cilantro is annual.

I need to learn how much of the different kinds of plants we like to eat.   Perhaps, though we may not get very much sage, we may not need very much sage.