Moving Forward With Horticulture

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.

Separating Sheep From Goats

Day 137: Seeds have a shelf life. Some are only viable in the first planting season after harvest. Others may lay dormant for years, even though buried in soil. That said, because dates printed on seed packets are generally quite conservative, you can always plant a "test run" to determine the germination rate of seeds stored past their recommended pull-date. I wasn't sure how long cilantro/coriander would keep, so I planted my "leftovers" in a flower pot and set it in the kitchen window two weeks ago. Within a few days, I had sprouts. However, they didn't look like coriander. After a few days went by, I recognized them as sunflowers. I shouldn't have been surprised. The squirrels get in my garage and hide their gleanings in the open bags of potting soil. I dutifully pulled up the "volunteers" and waited for something else to pop up. The next thing to show was a monocot, i.e., it had a single cotyledon leaf, again not cilantro. Cilantro is a dicot. When it sprouts, it exhibits a pair of leaves. Weeding out the monocots, I discovered that they were attached to millet grains, more bird seed stashed by gardening rodents. Now I am left with a potful of dicots which should produce true leaves shortly, and if they don't look like cilantro this time around, I'll have to buy a new packet.

A Taste For Cilantro

Day 292: Of all the things they have to choose from in my garden, the Honey Bees (Apis mellifera) and several species of tiny non-aggressive wasps and flies seem to be particularly attracted to the cilantro (coriander). On the other hand, the Bumblebees are drawn to Phacelia, the only plant to grow from a mixed packet of "bee flower" seeds I was given by a friend. I had let one batch of cilantro bolt accidentally, but when I realized it was drawing pollinators, I allowed the rest of it to run its course. As a bonus, it looks like I'm going to have lots of coriander seeds, both for cooking and for saving over to plant again next year.

An Acquired Taste

Day 172: Ask your friends and colleagues about cilantro, and you'll find that they either love it or hate it, and those who hate it will usually make horrible faces as they describe its somewhat soapy taste. However, you can accustom yourself to the flavour with a little effort, and may find yourself joining the ranks of those who can't imagine their favourite Mexican dishes without it. My palate for this herb has increased to the point that I prefer using it to replace lettuce in tacos and taco salads. I grow my own in season, but always seem to pick it faster than it grows, necessitating trips to the market for more. I store it as you see here: in the fridge with its stems in water, the tops loosely covered with a plastic bag. Cilantro! It's not just a garnish in my kitchen.