The Best Time and Method to Harvest Cilantro for Maximum Flavor and Aroma

how to harvest cilantro

One of the most used herbs in the world, cilantro, is also referred to as Chinese parsley or Coriandrum sativum. Fresh and zesty, cilantro gives your recipes a flavor boost. Mexican, Middle Eastern, Indian, Mediterranean, Chinese, African, and even Scandinavian cuisines use it extensively. Even cilantro microgreens are grown from it!

Since cilantro itself doesnโ€™t keep well and loses aroma and flavor once dried, most people prefer to use it fresh. To have cilantro on hand, you should also have a few plants in the garden.

You can harvest the plant for its flavorful cilantro seeds, also known as coriander, even if you donโ€™t use the leaves in your recipes. The leaves of the cilantro plants come throughout the spring and summer. Allow them to go to seed at that time since they grow easily in the garden!

You must know how to harvest cilantro properly if you want to have a steady supply. Keep reading to find out all you need to know about harvesting cilantro.

Harvesting Cilantro: Overview

Harvesting Cilantro

Most people either love or hate the flavor of cilantro leaves. However, you should still think about cultivating a few coriander plants in your garden and saving the seeds for a range of culinary uses.

Most people in the US grow this delicious herb for its leaves. But the tasty coriander seeds are also worth harvesting. They have a distinct flavor from cilantro leaves. This fragrant herb of the cool season, cilantro, quickly goes to seed in the long, sweltering summer months.

As the plant reaches higher in the sky, its rounded, lobed leaves become feathery. Pretty clusters of tiny white blossoms quickly emerge. Many pollinators are drawn to these nectar- and pollen-rich blossoms, particularly syrphid flies and honeybees. Little round coriander seeds with a kelly green color emerge as the blossoms start to fade.

What To Expect from Cilantro?

What To Expect from Cilantro

The distinctive flavor of coriander is citrusy and slightly nutty. It goes incredibly well with rice, beans, lentils, and roasted or grilled veggies. You can pick the seeds while they are still young and vibrant green. Or you can wait until they start to turn brown.

Since green coriander seed is only found in gardens, it is better to harvest them when they are still green because of their stronger, more distinct flavor. You will not find them in the farmersโ€™ market or the grocery store.

If the seeds are kept in a glass container with a lid, then they can be refrigerated for several weeks and frozen effectively as well. Wait until most of the seed turns brown if you want to harvest the mature brown seed for winter grinding or planting next year.

Next, trim off a few inches of stalk and the seed heads, then hang them upside down in a brown paper bag. The seeds will drop out of the heads and land in the bagโ€™s bottom once they are completely dry. The dry seed should be kept in a dry, cool place in a glass jar with a lid.

For optimal flavor, grind it just before using. The flavor difference between freshly ground coriander seed and the pre-ground variety typically found in stores will astound you. Try adding green coriander seeds to dressings and marinades. Frequently adding an equal amount of ground coriander to recipes that call for cumin makes the flavors of the two go particularly well together.

How to Harvest Cilantro?

Harvest Cilantro

The most exciting aspect of growing plants is undoubtedly harvesting. Pick individual cilantro leaves if you plan to use a small amount. It is best to leave at least 1-2 inches of stem above the soilโ€™s surface when harvesting larger quantities of cilantro.

It is preferable to leave a few lower leaves on the plant to support the herbs until they grow back. To cut the stems cleanly, use harvesting snips, long reach harvesting snips, or sharp, sterilized garden shears. To guarantee that your herbs regrow, it is best to remove only a small portion of the plant at a time.

Furthermore, when the cilantro plant blooms and sets seed, the herb may start to taste bitter. So, when wondering how to harvest cilantro, it is preferable to harvest before the plant bolts because the leaves will be less appetizing at that point.

When is The Best Time to Harvest Cilantro?

When is the Best Time to Harvest Cilantro

When the morning dew has cleared and the sun hasnโ€™t set, itโ€™s the ideal time of day to harvest a variety of fruits, vegetables, and herbs, including cilantro. This way you can lessen the stress on your cilantro plant and give the fresh stock cuts enough time to dry before dusk, which lowers the risk of illness.

Before it bolts, harvest cilantro when it is 6 to 8 inches tall. The flavor of cilantro leaves significantly decreases after they have bolted. The lifespan of the cilantro plants can be increased by careful and routine harvesting. It is crucial, though, to wait for your plant to become established before beginning to harvest.

The plant develops numerous long, thin stems as it grows. They are ready to be harvested when the stems are long, and the leaves have a lacy appearance. The cilantro herbs are about ten to twelve inches tall at this point. Gather your cilantro in the spring and into the first part of the summer.

Your plants may bolt to seed if summertime full sun conditions prove to be too hot for them. The best time to harvest cilantro is early morning. You can either choose to harvest it once a week or source just individual leaves whenever you need them.

Most of the time, it takes about 2-3 weeks for regrowth, so you must harvest accordingly. You must remember that regular cut-and-come-again harvesting is the most ideal while the plant keeps producing foliage.

How To Store Fresh Cilantro?

How To Store Fresh Cilantro

Part of knowing how to harvest cilantro is also knowing how to store them. Itโ€™s best to know how much you should take from the garden before you harvest. You will need to learn how to store cilantro if you do not intend to use the leaves right away to extend its shelf life. There are several approaches to try.

Storing Cilantro in Water

To keep the cilantro leaves dry, wait to wash them after harvesting. For storage purposes, store the stem ends in a glass or jar with 1 to 1.5 inches of water and refrigerate for a few days. At a minimum, change the water once a day. Use a plastic bag to cover the top loosely to preserve the humidity surrounding the herbs.

Storing Cilantro in The Freezer

Freezing cilantro is another low-maintenance way to store it. Shake off any extra moisture and rinse the leaves to get rid of any garden soil. Tear the leaves into small pieces and stuff them into ice cube trays, covering the herb with just enough water to barely cover.

You can pre-measure if youโ€™d like to ensure that you know precisely how much is in each cube for recipes in the future. After the cubes are completely frozen, place them in a freezer bag. Add as needed to marinade, smoothies, soups, and sauces. You can freeze cilantro for up to six or eight months.

Read More: Everything You Need To Know About Harvesting Basil

How To Dry Cilantro?

How To Dry Cilantro

There are two methods for drying cilantro. You can use the oven to dry cilantro. Since hot air can greatly affect the flavor of the finished and dried herb, you might want to avoid using heat if you want to enjoy flavorful dried cilantro.

Air drying or hanging drying is a better way to dry cilantro. Gather the stems of the herbs into a small bunch and secure them with a string. Place the bunch in a dark, well-ventilated area and hang it upside down. Alternatively, you can wrap the bunch in a brown paper bag to keep the cilantro from getting dusty.

After the bunch has been hanging for about a week, begin to check its level of dryness every day or two. Itโ€™s ready to be crushed or powdered and stored for later use when it crumbles when touched.

Cure the cilantro ahead of time to reduce the possibility of mold growth. Put the dried cilantro in a glass mason jar to cure. Open the jar and give it a good shake every day to let fresh air into it and mix the contents. This will assist in achieving moisture content parity. If youโ€™d like, you can also include a moisture-absorbing packet.

How To Harvest Cilantro Seeds?

How To Harvest Cilantro Seeds

You can harvest the coriander seeds even if you donโ€™t like cilantro leaves. The plant can grow to 20 inches when it flowers. This requires temperatures above 75 degrees. Pods will form once they have flowered, and the flowers will fade.

Before being harvested, these should be green to brown in color. These pods release the mature seed when itโ€™s ready. Tie the stems with the seed pods still attached into a bunch. Next, hang them upside down in a paper bag in a cool, dry place to harvest the seeds.

With time, the seeds will sprout and drop into the bag. Store your seeds in a dry, cool place in an airtight jar. Unground dried seeds can be kept for three to four years in storage. Before using dried seeds in your recipes, grind them for the best flavor.

How To Harvest Cilantro So It Keeps Growing?

How To Harvest Cilantro So It Keeps Growing

If you sow cilantro seeds every two weeks from spring until late summer, you can be sure to always have fresh leaves available. We advise chopping them up and firmly packing them into an ice cube tray filled with water. Then, just place the tray in the freezer. These can then be added directly to hot pans when preparing soups or sauces. Or they can be dropped into hot or cold water for cooking or drinking.

What To Do If Cilantro Bolts?

What To Do If Cilantro Bolts

Itโ€™s time to collect and preserve your own coriander seeds once your plant produces seeds. Picture each of those tiny white blossoms turning into a flavorful spice for your cooking or seeds for the following year! In addition to being aesthetically pleasing and tasty, cilantro flowers are also excellent pollinators. 

There is a short window of time when the growing seasons of cilantro and tomatoes coincide. This proves they go well together. It usually happens that my tomato and pepper plants are just starting to take off when my cilantro plants bolt, sending forth gorgeous white flowers.

To maximize the amount of fruit your plants produce for you, beneficial insects that are feeding on your cilantro flowers will collide with your fruiting plants, vibrate their leaves, and assist in pollination. Ladybugs, butterflies, and bees all love cilantro flowers. It truly is a win-win!

Choose Slow Bolt Seeds

Seek out seed packets labeled โ€œlong-standingโ€ or โ€œslow bolt cilantro,โ€ as these varieties have been cultivated to endure longer in the garden. You can find your go-to slow bolt seeds that are 100% certified organic from Seeds of Change.

Finding a local seed producer is another smart move. Buying local seeds means youโ€™ll be growing a climate-adapted variety of cilantro, which increases the likelihood that youโ€™ll keep it longer.

Harvest Cilantro Regularly

Regularly chop your cilantro leaves. This preserves the health of the plant and guarantees that the leaves of this herb are fresh when you use them. Your cilantro will continue to produce new leaves from the center of the plant if you regularly harvest it by chopping off the older outer leaves.

Additionally, your chances of cutting off those immature flower stalks increase with the amount of cilantro you harvest. This will aid in postponing any bolting.

 Since cilantro is incredibly obstinate, you can delay as long as you can. Cut that thick center stalk as soon as possible. After that, the plant will start to send outside shoots, giving you a little extra cilantro before it eventually bolts completely. For sun protection, surround your cilantro with tall plants.

Plant Taller Plants Around Cilantro for Sun Protection

Encircle your cilantro with large warm-season plants (like tomato or pepper plants) so that the taller plants can shade your herbs slightly and help keep the soil cooler as the temperatures rise. After all, four to six hours of sun is sufficient for cilantro to grow. To increase the lifespan of your cilantro in the garden, interplant it with larger plants.

Wrapping Up

You will need to have patience if you want to collect the seeds for your cilantro. Before seeds can be harvested, cilantro needs to blossom. Before harvesting, the resulting seed heads need to be allowed to dry on the plant for a while.

Harvesting the seeds is then as simple as shaking them into a paper bag or chopping off the entire seedhead and placing it inside the bag. If you have thoughts to share or questions to ask about how to harvest cilantro, please leave a comment below. We would love to hear from you!

Read Also:

Ankita Tripathy loves to write about food and the Hallyu Wave in particular. During her free time, she enjoys looking at the sky or reading books while sipping a cup of hot coffee. Her favourite niches are food, music, lifestyle, travel, and Korean Pop music and drama.

View all posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related

Messy Store Room

6 Smart Organizing Tips for a Messy Store Room

Imagine going into your bedroom wardrobe and not finding a spot to display your clothing or finding shelves or cabinets to wrap your folded garments, clothes, and accessories away? This won't be easy to keep the clothing sorted without the framework and storage structures in place. The same laws extend to warehouses! This often appears that the best thing about storerooms is their weakness: they always become a blank canvas. These become open space or closet deficient in organizing, sometimes resulting in being a drop zone and landing area for bins and things to build up over time. When it causes you a headache when you try to search and grab it, it might be time to arrange your storeroom and unpack it. Here are some of the tips you can consider to organize your storeroom. 6 Smart Organizing Tips for a Messy Store Room: 1. Categorize and De-clutter the area You want to arrange similar things together, close to having sorted in certain parts of your house. This physical activity can help you see just what you possess, how much of it, and what to consider when determining when to go in the garage. Gather your childhood mementos, gather your holiday decor, take out your luggage and travel supplies, dig out service pieces, etc. Categorize the things that you don't need anymore. While making the area clean, do not forget to spray a Responsible Pest & Scorpion Control medicine to make your storeroom pests free. 2. Widen the vertical space Don't confine yourself to a room on the board. Usually, the storerooms have relatively high ceilings, so step up. The more things that you can push into more upper shelving or shelves, the more floor room you can open up and bring in your work workers, which is also a bonus. 3. Make adjustable shelves They are perfect for tiny rooms because you can change the shelves' heights to match different storage requirements and wishes. Make some storage unit shelves to get things placed easily. This will give the room a more approachable and organized look. 4. Place the most important things in front When putting something, you need it more frequently in front of you, and you would be able to get to them faster. Often, moving boxes or objects further would then be needless to enter the purpose you seek. It does away with unnecessary confusion and discomfort. 5. Make Labels The trick to an efficient storage room has to learn where each object is. It's possible to lose track of where they are, no matter how beautiful the memory can be. Making labels for your room's storage choices allows it more accessible to easily find items and recognize where to place new products when you buy them. 6. Keep checking and Clearing your storeroom To stop the hoarding of products, periodically visit your storeroom to give away outdated goods or give away things that have not been used for more than half a year. It will keep the items from collecting in the storage room, which will motivate you to tidy up more effectively. Read Also: Small Kitchen Storage Ideas How to Decorate a Room with no Cost 5 Innovative Ideas To Lend Your Bedroom With More Space

READ MOREDetails
Value Of Your Home

How To Increase The Value Of Your Home

Raising the value of your home can seem like an impossible task at first, particularly if you are working with a restrictive budget. However, it is not impossible. In this article, we will be looking into some of the simple ways that you can increase the value of your home with ease. Replace The Doors And Windows When looking to put your home on the market you want it to look its best. As a result, you may want to consider replacing the doors and windows, particularly if you are dealing with a draft of any kind. This will not only improve the curb appeal of your home, but it can also help to improve the energy usage of your home making it more appealing for those looking to purchase. Makeover The Kitchen And Living Room As the central hub of the home, the kitchen and the living room re the first two areas that you should consider modernizing. One of the easiest ways to do this is to paint the walls a neutral color. This will make the home more appealing to those hoping for a blank canvas, in addition to this, it is likely to brighten up the room as a whole. The living room can also be modernized and transformed by incorporating a custom-designed canvas using a next day canvas prints service for your home. Improve The Look Of Your Garden If you are lucky enough to have garden space, this needs to look the best that it can be at all times. By improving the front garden with flowers and taking care of the tress you are then making it seem more appealing to the buyer when they have a first impression. It is then time to consider the back garden. By mowing the lawn, tending to the flowerbeds, and removing any unwanted weeds in the patio, you can improve the curb appeal as well as the value of your home over time. Though this will take some man-hours, this will make it look more appealing to the listing. Create A Driveway The final way that you can boost the curb appeal for your home is to generate a driveway. If you have a vast amount of space outside the front of the house, sprucing up your driveway will make the home more appealing for those that have multiple cars or a family. Whether this is gated or just left open, this can help to limit on the road parking and raise the value of your home. IF you already have a driveway, it is recommended that you remove the weeds and clean the bricks or concrete to make it looks its best. Whether you are in the process of selling, or you are considering it in the near future, some of these small little tips can help you to raise the property value of your home and sell it for the full amount that you would like. Read Also: Top Home Cleaning Tips How To Pick The Perfect Flooring For Your New Home

READ MOREDetails
Modern Home design

Modern Home design ideas for crowded families

A house with many family members is hard to manage as everyone loves to have their own space. But the limited space can make it crowded by giving your home giving an ugly look. All thanks to modern ideas which have introduced several ideas for crowded families. It makes the house look arranged while keeping in mind adjustments. The look involves the latest trends and lifestyles to develop my sense of styling while keeping my mind comfortable. Apart from these comes your pets, for whom a small kennel door with a dog door could be placed on the lawn of your house. In this article, we will discuss modern home design ideas for crowded families. Ideal space for Teenagers A crowded family must have children and teenagers who demand their own space. However, providing each one of them with their separate rooms may not be possible. To overcome this solution, the idea of the shared bedroom can be considered. The design of the bedroom should focus on the needs of children according to their age. To create more space, bunk beds are the most flexible options, leaving you with some empty spaces to play around. Nowadays, study stable comes with multiples shelves fixed from the wall and can be closed when not in use while creating a good space-saving idea. These shelves are useful hacks for putting their stuff, toys, and books in a proper place. The sofa cum bed could also be turned on into a great option. The beds also come with lots of storage box options where new things, including sports or musical instruments, can be put on. Lastly, the wardrobe cabinet with multiple small shelves and space for hangers will store all their clothes methodically. If there are both boys and girls in a room, try keeping a neutral color of walls like calm grey, which would look pleasant without overly decorated. Give a multi-dimensional look to your dining room. For a home with a large number of people, there is much need for multifunctional spaces. The dining spaces could be transformed into a games room or a corner used as a reading place. You can place an armchair with bookshelves placed on the walls. One needs to focus on the preferences of family members for doing so. A television set could also be placed on the other side of the wall there with a lounge for entertainment purposes. You can add some masterpiece painting, vases, or wallpapers to give a modern look in your room. Place a dining table where your family can fit in have a meal together. The buffet tables or smart dining tables with extendable chairs are a great way to save space. Go for an open kitchen You can plan your dining room entrance just before the open kitchen as it will save a lot of space in the kitchen. The open kitchen doesn't make it look congested, and the dining room's access will recreate more space into it. It would be easy to serve food and won't create a mess around long pathways. You can place a covered shelves box or drawers in the wall and arrange all your cutleries there for storage options. Make sure to build cabinets below the kitchen slabs where you can store multiple ingredients along with a cylinder at the corner. Put your microwave in one corner and attach extended shelves or cabinets on the walls for keeping more utilities there. A larger counter place would eliminate high trafficking in a home where more than one person works. You can create a specific station in the kitchen for getting your work more organized. Turn out your lawn into a place to get together For having a good time, a lounging area can be considered an entertainment room option. The large family tries to do everything together, so the lawn or balcony could be placed with comfy diwan and sofa sets. One could turn it up as a garden by putting up many plants, and the place would be great for a mini picnic spot. You can also add bean bags or swings and decorate them with warm lighting to create a unique evening look. The place would be great for barbeques, or a small get-together. If you don't have much space, you can create a window seat and do partitions using some fabrics to create a visual barrier. Create congenial public spaces For your living thing, the best would be to go with L-shaped sofas. They are useful to handle the long stream of guests and can be placed with some more small seaters around. If you have a larger living space, you can break it into shorter sitting with cushions for private conversations. Make sure to use durable surfaces that would be durable and easy to clean the mess in a busy family. This setup will give a warm and comfortable space. You can also place a wall red sea aquarium to use the best of areas. Placing a wall aquarium will consume less space and it will be a center of attraction for everyone. Conclusion To avoid the mess, place a standard shoe stand. You can also use the garage's extra space as a storeroom by putting up the different things there. Utilize the basement of your house for this purpose. You can save more space by having shared bathrooms placed between the bedrooms. Read Also: 7 Ways to Add Character and Style to Your Home 5 Tips For Designing a Tiny House Design your Kitchen According to Your Budget and Work in Organized Manner How to Make Your Home Look Like You Hired An Interior Designer How to Make your Home Look Beautiful in the Upcoming Holidays

READ MOREDetails