If you are fond of Mexican or even Asian dishes, then you might want to know how to grow a garden full of cilantro, so you can be sure to have fresh and crisp cilantro every time you need it. Cilantro are not just very flavorful. It is also packed with so much vitamins and minerals that is good for your body and health.
The thing with cilantro is that they can rot easily even if you store them inside the refrigerator. Therefore, having them planted
Here are the steps for growing cilantro:
Get The Seeds
You need good quality seeds if you want to grow healthy and abundant cilantro. You can purchase seeds online, farmer’s market, or from garden supply stores. When you already have them, wash them with soap and water. Make sure that you thoroughly rinsed the seeds. Once they are dry, you can now plant them. Make sure that the soil is well draining, and you have to place the pot anywhere where there is full sunlight.
Planting The Seeds
Cilantro can grow tall, so you might want to set at least 1 inch in between seeds. Make sure that the seeds are planted not more than 1 inch deep. This depth is enough for cilantro to develop strong roots. Cilantro cannot live in the frost. So if you live in cold areas, you might want to plant them indoors, but make sure that sunlight reaches your plant box.
Trimming & Pruning Your Cilantro Plant
Trim the leaves when they are already branching out far from the central stalk. This is because you want to conserve the energy of the plant, so that it will continue developing leaves. Cutting the leaves and flowers of the cilantro plant will also give you a good harvest of seeds that you can replant, in order to make new sprouts of cilantro. Pruning your cilantro plant will help you lengthen the time you have for harvesting fresh and crisp cilantro leaves.
Harvesting
When harvesting cilantro, make sure to cut leaves from different spots. This is to make sure that no parts will be dull, so that every part of your cilantro plant will continuously develop new leaves that you will use for cooking.
These are the different steps that you can do if you want to know how to grow cilantro. The steps above are actually basic. You can still learn more on how to maximize your harvest by gathering seeds from dead flowers, so you can make your cilantro garden bigger and bountiful. It is important to know how to harvest seeds from your existing cilantro plant. This is because no matter how you take care of your cilantro plant, this short lived plant will eventually die.
image courtesy of LeafLanguages/flickr
