On Fri, 20 Jun 2003 00:36:58 -0500, "Rona Yuthasastrakosol"
wrote:



Both my basil and cilantro plants were from little plants (which seemed
healthy when I bought them). I'm starting to wonder if the soil I used was
not as good as it should have been. It was no-name brand potting soil, and
it had little styrofoam pellets in it. Why would it need styrofoam pellets?
I added some fertilizer to it but I may have also used the wrong kind of
fertilizer. It said it was for vegetable gardens, though, so shouldn't that
be good enough?


Cilantro bolts to seed very rapidly. I wouldn't buy little
plants - by the time you buy them, they're probably just
about finished.

I start seeds and grow cilantro indoors on a sunny
windowsill. It takes just a little more than one month from
sowing the seed to harvesting the cilantro.

It's pretty easy to have a constant supply of cilantro: I
grow it in foil loaf pans - they fit nicely on a windowsill
(with another pan under them to catch the drips). I poked
drainage holes in the loaf pans with a pencil.

If I start one loafpan of cilantro each week (I have six of
them), I have a continuous supply of cilantro. The seed
wants darkness to germinate (or so I'm informed, anyway, by
Ann Reilly's 'Parks Success with Seed'), so I cover the
loafpan with foil until the seed sprouts. Then I put it in
the windowsill.

For economy's sake, I usually buy 'coriander seeds' in a
grocery store and use them - although I did buy seeds from
Pinetree once and they don't bolt as quickly, so they're
probably worth it.

Pat