Day 11: Over the years, I have allowed certain flowering plants to go to seed in my garden in the hopes that they would come up the following year. I've had some successes and some failures, the latter perhaps because my little avian friends enjoy them and pick them up as soon as I walk away. I have also saved seed from poppies, nigella, columbine and other florals to plant in the spring, again with success and failure running about 50-50. However, I have never collected seed from any edible to replant until now.
Although I had to train my taste buds to appreciate the flavour at first, cilantro is now one of my favourite seasonings and absolutely essential in such dishes as enchiladas and refried beans. For the past several years, I've grown it from seed in a pot so that I have fresh leaves available any time, and a few plants from this year's crop bolted and set seed. While cleaning out the garden yesterday, I gathered a handful of mature heads, brought them indoors and cleaned them of debris, and am now drying the seed for winter storage. Although I intend to use the leaves if I get a crop next spring, cilantro seeds give us the spice known as coriander, and is used extensively in Middle Eastern and Indian cuisine.
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