Horticulture Tips from Lelia Kelly, David Nagel Seeding Cilantro for a fall crop Most everyone that has a vegetable garden is enjoying fresh tomatoes right now. Those of us who love fresh salsa, picante sauce and other Tex/Mex dishes that are flavored with cilantro are lamenting the fact that our garden cilantro has long since bolted and gone to seed. Both temperature and day length influence flowering and seed setting with the longest vegetative period occurring when the plant is growing in the cooler temperatures and shorter days of spring and fall. It is always aggravating to have someone tell you what you should have done, but I am going to go ahead and say it—you should have harvesting the aromatic foliage of this very popular plant when it was growing vigorously this spring and frozen it in zip lock bags for use now in your Tex/Mex dishes. It doesn’t hold its flavor well when dried, so freezing is the best method. All is not lost, as you can sow a fall crop of cilantro to have with your fall tomato crop. All you have to do is count back about 70 days from your typical first frost date, and sow cilantro seed on that date. For example, for north Mississippi our first frost is typically around Halloween, so I would sow my seed on August 23rd. You folks in south Mississippi might have to adjust this forward a week or so because your growing season is longer, seeding your cilantro around August 30th or Sept 6th. Johnny’s Select Seeds indicate that cilantro will germinate in about 7-10 days and be ready for harvesting of leaves in 50-55 days. Only harvest about a third of the foliage at a time. Seed begin to form in 90-105 days from seeding, at which point the foliage becomes a little “off” tasting and the life cycle of the plant will be ending. For a fall crop the plant may succumb to freezing temperatures before the seed are formed. Sow seed about ½ inch deep in well drained soil.
Posted on: Mon, 05 Aug 2013 20:37:50 +0000
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