Growing cilantro and coriander

When I first started to grow herbs, I was disappointed to see the  short harvest window of the cilantro plant, and the small quantity of leaves that a single plant gives. A cilantro plant doesn't have a huge amount of leaves, and it quickly turns to seed. I found the solution to this issue by coincidence. One year, Ray had an extra cilantro seedling, and I stuck it in a large planter to avoid wasting it. It did its thing and went to seed. The next spring, while weeding the planter, I noticed a familiar scent and I realized that I had accidentally weeded out a bunch of cilantro "volunteer" plants. (Volunteers are seedlings that pop up on their own, most likely because of a seed from a plant the previous year.) Fortunately, more volunteers popped up and before I knew it, I had a whole bed of cilantro leaves... enough to harvest for cooking. 

The next year I was more intentional about taking advantage of this reseeding. In the fall, I harvested a large quantity of seeds from dried out cilantro plants in that bed. I stored them in a plastic container. In the spring, I let the volunteers pop up from the seeds I unavoidably missed. Then, every few weeks I sprinkled a few seeds from my reserve onto that area of the bed. I then had cilantro in the "leafy" stage in continuous supply throughout the summer which is great for tacos, wraps, and Thai-style stir fries. 

Incidentally, did you know that cilantro seeds are coriander? I am not shy about dipping into my saved seeds throughout the winter whenever I need a bit of coriander. I just grind it up with a mortar and pestle.

Here is one of my favorite fall recipes that features cilantro and delicata squash.