How to grow Coriander?
Are currently lamenting the fact that when you try to grow coriander all your coriander plants bolt to seed. And you are calling yourself a bad gardener, because the replacement seedlings that you bought from the garden centre have died. Stop! Right now!
You see, coriander does not like the hot, humid summers that we have! They are not alone 
espite what you may read on some other gardening blogs!
This year we had a very warm September in Brisbane, and my beautiful coriander plants bolted to flower and seed! Sadly this is a fact of life when you garden in the subtropics!
Coriander plant in flower
Although you can still buy seedlings and even mature coriander plants at the garden centre, there is little point as they too will either bolt to seed. Or even worse die as soon as you put them in the ground!
If you really want to persist in growing coriander in summer in the sub-tropics, then try growing them indoors on a warm windowsill that only gets early morning light.
I warn you that you will need to really mollicodle the plants, and be alert to problems with mealybug, red spider mite and even fungal disease!
All is not lost though! When my coriander plants bolted to seed, I let the seeds dry naturally on the plant and harvested most of these for use in my kitchen.
I also left some seeds on the plant so that they could sow themselves in the garden, ready for the next crop.
These seeds will probably lay dormant until March or April when they will happily emerge as new coriander plants.
Coriander
I find that they tend to self-seed best in the sandy path next to the vegetable patch, rather than in the garden itself, so I now let them grow wherever they come up 🙂
So from January until the end of March, I will have to rely either on perennial coriander or else I will have to buy my coriander from the markets like everyone else.
Happy gardening
Rohanne, your Personal Garden Expert
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