All I know about cilantro is: It bolts, as soon as it gets hot.

It can be frozen and added to salsa. Freezing changes the texture but not the flavor. I have been doing this for several years. If you just don't like the texture change, you may have to buy fresh cilantro at the store, because as Moni says, as soon as it gets hot, it bolts

I started the seeds 2-3 weeks ago so they are still small, not enough to freeze a bunch before the summer heat arrives.

The variety I have says its slow to bolt but I assume it still doesn't take much in the Oklahoma heat. I'll still plant some outside to be able to harvest the seeds for cooking.

How about growing it indoors?

Cynthia

I want it all summer too. I'm planning to put it in a pot in partial shade & cut it regularly & continue to sow & see if I can keep it going awhile. At least until I leave for a couple weeks & it bolts.

Ive grown cilantro probably 8 out of the last 10 years and never had a bolting issue. I plant in fill sun. My only issue has been that it grows like crazy..... But....... I do pinch the tops off of them constantly so that they dont flower or go to seed, so thats might be the difference. But if your a fan of coriander, let some go to seed, grind them up in a morter and pestal and you have fresh coriander. Thats just my experience with it.

Good luck

Emma

Carol, my father and my son agree with you, but my daughter and I love it, fresh or frozen in our fresh salsa.

Cynthia,

I succession sow cilantro every 2 or 3 weeks so I always have more coming along in case the current group of cilantro plants starts to bolt. I really don't mind having it flower because many of the beneficial insects that help control pest insects are attracted to the cilantro's flowers. Any flower that attracts beneficial insects to my garden is welcome.

Chosing a slow-bolting variety helps it stay in production a bit longer.

Keeping the ground really cool by mulching it heavily or by sowing the seed very thickly so the plants shade the ground beneath themselves can help prevent it from bolting. This is a key point because it is not warm air temperatures that induce bolting in cilantro, it is warm soil temperatures.

Cutting it frequently helps keep it in a vegetative state too, though eventually it will want to flower. Remember that the cilantro plants are programmed to flower---that is how they ensure the survival of their species by setting seed for the next crop.

I grow it in everything from dappled shade to full sun and it is happy pretty much everywhere, as long as it is mulched so the soil stays relatively cool. I usually put on mulch about 4" thick before the end of May.

You also can grow heat-loving cilantro substitutes like papalo or culantro.

You can grow it inside under fluorescent lights, but I don't know that it is necessary to go to that extreme. Try growing it well mulched outside and cutting it often or try growing it in the cool season and papalo and culantro in the warm season. You'll likely have to order seeds for them online. I've never seen papalo or culantro seeds on a seed rack in a store.

Like Emma, I have to cut mine often because it grows so well, especially at this time of the year, but when I have to cut a lot and don't have time to use it all or freeze it, I mulch the potato plants with it. I think maybe it keeps the pests away.

Carol, I like cilantro but only in reasonable amounts. If Tim made the salsa in this family, I think he'd substitute cilantro for the tomatoes. When he's making pico de gallo, I have to hover and look over his shoulder to make sure he isn't putting in so much cilantro that no one else will eat the pico. He got his recipe from a friend who has owned a Mexican restaurant for decades, but I am pretty sure the recipe calls for 2 T. of cilantro, and Tim will put in 2 cups of it. It drives me crazy.

Dawn

Carol, I'll never forget the first time I tasted fresh cilantro, it tasted exactly like dish soap to me. I avoided it for years, but now I love it. Now it tastes like summer.

Personally I dislike cilantro. I won't grow it in my yard! But I have friends that love it, and grow it.

I also don't like to baby plants. I plant them, and they have a choice, grow and produce, or die. That is why this weird season we usually call spring is so hard for me.

No sympathy from me. LOL

Moni

I really appreciate all the great advice. I'm happy to hear that some of you have had success with growing it in the summer. I decided I will try to grow it in a couple of different locations in the garden; just to see how it will be affected. Also, I will definitely mulch heavily, harvest/prune often and also do succession plantings.

If I'm not successful with it this summer, I will look into the alternative Dawn mentioned (papalo or culantro ) for next summer.

I think cilantro can be an acquired taste - I used to think it tasted like soap, too! Now I can't imagine having salsa without it. I liken it to my use of fish sauce: by itself or too much of it doesn't taste very good to me but just the right amounts well blended into food adds another dimension and flavor to the food that would be missing without it.

Dawn, i guess the reason ive had such good luck with mine is that i grow it in such large bunches, i dont thin it out at all and i also plant it right at the end of the bed where my tomatos go, so i guess thats why ive had luck with no bugs on my tomato plants. I had no idea that it attracts good bugs. I hadnt even bought any seed this year, but ill be going out to get some today and probably plant it tomorrow when i plant the tomatos.

Thanks for the good info. I will probably plant it on both ends of the bed this year!

Emma

I just planted some in 4 inch pots tonight after reading this thread. Too much cilantro is awful but a little makes salsa taste good. I used to hate it.

If people are worried about cilantro bolting in summer, can you not plant your seeds in pots and as the heat picks up, you can move them in a shadier location.

Shade will help a little and for a brief period of time but it won't help a lot. Cilantro bolts and goes to seed for several reasons, but the main reason it happens is temperature-related since cilantro is a cool-season plant. The magic temperature is roughly 75 degrees, so once your soil temperatures and/or air temperatures are staying above 75 degrees, the cilantro will stop making new foliage and will focus its energy on producing flowers in order that it may produce seed to perpetuate itself. Moving the plants to the shade, or raising it in morning sun/afternoon shade from the start also usually will keep it going longer because soil in afternoon shade warms up less quickly than soil in afternoon sun, up to a point.

You can keep cilantro going as long as possible by using some of the newer, slower-bolting varieties. They can give you cilantro for up to a month longer than older varieties. Keeping your plants moist so they aren't stressed will slow down how early bolting occurs, but only a little bit. Regularly cutting and using your cilantro also will keep the plant somewhat more focused on making more foliage to replace what you've cut. Sowing new seed every 2 to 4 weeks will help extend the harvest a bit by continually giving you new small plants, but you'll have to harvest them smaller later in the season as increasing heat will make them bolt before they get very big.

There are several cilantro substitutes that can be grown in hotter weather, including Papalo and Culantro. For me, Culantro grows all summer despite the heat and gets huge (4' tall and about as wide, so one plant is more than enough) and has a flavor similar to cilantro. I grow it in an area where it gets morning sun until about 11 am and then is in dappled shade the rest of the day. I've never tried Culantro in full-sun all day in our hot climate, but it is a hot-season plant so it should be fine even in full sun.

Okie, great info, great post.

If Cilantro loves cool climate, can you grow it indoors during winter and summer? Would you need shop lights in winter or you can place it by window sill?

Thanks. You can grow anything you want indoors but with limitations. Indoor lightning is nowhere near as strong as sunlight, so plants tend to become etiolated----abnormally tall and lanky, often referred to as "leggy". You definitely would need shop lights. There is an entire forum on Growing Under Lights here at Garden Web if you want to read up on it. Even in the summertime, I think results indoors might be a little iffy. It would depend on several factors. How much light the plants get is only one. If you put the plants in a sunny, south-facing window that isn't shaded or partially shaded by trees and where the light isn't filtered through curtains, the plants might get enough light to grow. I'm not sure though. You'd need to keep your house's thermostat set low enough to keep the indoor temperature at or below 75 to prevent bolting. If the sunshine coming through the window shines directly on the plant and its container, the sunlight might heat up the soil in the container above 75 degrees. See how complicated it can be? If I were going to attempt to row cilantro indoors in our house in the summertime, I'd probably put it on my light shelf in front of an east[facing window. I'd leave the curtains open so it could get morning sun, but would turn the light on mid-day so it got light from the light shelf for the rest of the day. The combination of morning sun with artificial light during the hotter part of the day might be enough to keep it growing well without bolting, but I'm not sure as I've never attempted it.

I just grow cilantro in the cool-season and culantro in the warm-season. I find it easier to work with the weather we have than to try to totally circumvent it. Remember that you also can grow cilantro outdoors in the fall, from a late-summer sowing. You can grow lettuce and other greens indoors in summer, so I imagine cilantro would do as well as they do, but none of them will get the size indoors they do outdoors because of the weaker light. The way around that is to continually cut them off slightly above the soil level and let them regrow. This is called the cut-and-come-again method. I never cut 100% of any plant with the cut-and-come again method, harvesting only part of it at a time so there's foliage left to conduct photosynthesis in order to keep the plant growing and to keep the cut-off part regrowing.

Okay when would be good timing to sow cilantro seeds in the garden? I'm in Zone 5.

I am not sure when you would plant it in zone 5. I'm in zone 7 in Oklahoma and sow the seeds anywhere from late February (roughly a month before our average last frost date) through late April. In areas where I have let seeds form on the plants and self-sow, the new seedlings usually emerge here on their own sometime near the end of March. I'm guessing that in zone 5 you probably would sow cilantro seed sometime in April. If you already grow dill, you can sow your cilantro seed at the same time you sow dill seed. The cilantro plants usually will tolerate temperatures down into about the mid-20s. If your temperatures are dropping lower than that after the cilantro is up and growing, you can cover it with floating row cover that's heavy enough to protect the plants. (Row cover comes in different weights.) I know that some people in zone 5 can overwinter their fall cilantro plants underneath heavyweight floating row cover and can harvest from those plants in the winter until whatever time in spring the plants begin to bolt. For that to work, your cilantro plants need to be a decent size in fall before the temperatures start falling below freezing. You're essentially using floating row covers to allow you to harvest fall-planted cilantro into the winter months but you won't get a lot of new growth due to the cold soil and air temperatures.