The Number One Secret to Growing Cilantro

Foreign. You're never going to kill cilantro in your garden again after you watch this video. If I've heard one question over and over and over, over and over again in my years of being a garden consultant, it is this one thing. Why can I not keep cilantro alive? And today, I'm going to help you know the answer to that question. My name is Nicole Burke, and. Hi. I'm the owner and founder of Gardenary, and I'm on a mission to make gardening ordinary for everyone, including you. And that includes growing cilantro. So cilantro is an herb. It is in the carrot plant family Apiaceae, if you want to be fancy with the Latin. And cilantro, dill, parsley, carrots, parsnips, celery. They're all in the same plant family, Apacae. And they all grow somewhat similarly, as things that are in the same family do in my book. Leaves, roots, and fruit. These are a ST. Step 2 plant, which means they're not that hard. I'll say it again. They're not that hard. So step two out of eight steps to learn how to garden. That's where I put cilantro. So I just want you to know they're not that hard to grow. The thing you're missing, the thing that is making or breaking your cilantro game in the garden, is the timing. So today, I'm going to show you how to time it right with your cilantro, because I've already got cilantro growing in my garden, and even though most of it is pretty bare. All right, so let's talk about what time it is right now. It is February. It is, like, February 22nd, and we've had a really cold winter here in Nashville, Tennessee. We had, like, record amounts of snowfall, and we've had cold nights for weeks on end. And look at what's growing in this otherwise very bare garden. Cilantro. What? So the temperatures are regularly below 30 degrees at night. They're rarely above 50 in the day. And you can see how this cilantro is just taking off. And here's a little secret. I didn't even plant this cilantro here. This came from seeds that dropped last spring. So we can use this plant as a clue to tell us. Hey, ding, ding, ding. Cilantro doesn't like to grow in the middle of the summer when Lowe's and Home Depot and all the other big box stores. Stores have it for sale. Cilantro likes to grow right now when it's cold, when there's a chance of frost. Even when there's some snow, cilantro will hang on. So if you've been heading to Lowe's or Home Depot or any local store, when, when you're ready to buy tomatoes or peppers or cucumbers or squash and you see cilantro on the shelf, don't buy it. Do not buy it. Walk right past it, because I am telling you that, that cilantro, you're going to put it in your garden and it's just going to sit there, or it's going to go to seed almost immediately because the temperatures are too hot for it, because cilantro, it's a cool season plant. And we can tell from this one right here. Different bed, but you can see all the cilantro that's coming up volunteer with the same kind of temperatures. So this happens because cilantro drops seed whenever it bolts. And this is what you get at the end of the season. So. So at the end of the spring and at the end of the fall, wind temps start to change. Mostly in the summer when it goes too hot, or in the fall, when you head toward winter, your cilantro is going to bolt and go to seed. And each and every one of these little round globes is known as coriander, but it's also cilantro seed. So these seeds really need to be put under the soil in the ground right around the cool time of year. So if it's right before the spring season, like right now, if you're 60 days before your last frost, this is a time to plant your seeds. And if it's 60 days before your first frost, so we are right now in February, we're exactly two months before our last frost in Nashville. And then in August will be about two months before our first frost in October. So those are the two times that you want to plant seeds. Seeds. Cilantro is going to do so much better. You can see how healthy these little starts are. They're going to do so much better when they volunteer when they come up from seed, rather than bringing them in as a plant that you buy from the hardware store or a local nursery. Now, let me show you how easy it is to plant cilantro seed. So at the end of each season, when your cilantro goes to seed, you're going to let this fully dry. And you can either just let this do its own thing, or you can just come back the next season right before it's planting time, and literally scatter these seeds. Some people call this chaos. Gardening. Some people call this, you know, making a mess. I call this planting the way nature plants. Because if you think about it, if we're not involved, then this is exactly how nature would plant its own cilantro. And it's how all the cilantro we can see growing in my garden planted itself. Those cilantro plants from last year, they grew up, they bolted, they turned into all this seed, and then they just naturally dropped their seed right in place, and boom, I've got more cilantro a year later. So we can do this. You can cover this up just a little bit with some. A little bit of soil, or literally just kind of move the soil around to make sure everything has good contact. And if you're in the right part of the year, 60 days before your first frost, 60 days before your last frost, then you're going to have great luck keeping your cilantro alive. So the name of the game with cilantro is timing and the source of your plant. So you want to make sure your cilantro is going in when it's not hot, not even warm, when it's very cool outside in the garden. And then you want to start with seed rather than starting with a plant. If you do those two things, you're going to keep cilantro alive. And in fact, you're going to have more cilantro in your garden than you know what to do with. All right, so now you know how to keep your cilantro alive for so much more of the year in your kitchen garden. The answer is the timing, and the timing you can figure out simply by downloading the gardenary calendar. The calendar is free to you right away. All you've got to do is put two of your special dates inside this calendar. We calculate everything else for you, tell you when to plant each and everything in your garden this year, including cilantro. To get your gardenary calendar, just go to gardenary.com calendar or you can find the link below this video and get your dates to start planting. And then grab my book, Leaves, Roots, and Fruit, also linked below this video so that you know what to do with cilantro and all your other plants in the garden. Thanks so much for watching and growing with Mi. Be sure to subscribe to the channel right below this video and I'll see you next time. 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