On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 21:34:52 +0100, "Mungo \"Two Sheds\" Toadfoot"
wrote:

Janet Baraclough wrote:
The message
from "Mungo \"Two Sheds\" Toadfoot" contains these
words:

I've only ever tried coriander and that wasn't overly successful. I
did use culinary seeds rather than ones specifically for planting
though, if it makes a difference.

There are two sorts of edible coriander; one with spidery leaves
grown to produce the culinary seeds, and one with larger flat leaves
which is the sort to use when a recipe calls for a handful of chopped
coriander. So, the culinary seeds you planted would not produce the
leaf one if that's what you wanted.

That'll be why it didn't work then! Thank you, I thought as much.

You'll find seed of the leaf sort sold in any GC as cilantro, it's
easy
to grow sown in the open garden and not too late to start a crop now.
Don't transplant them, it makes them bolt to flower and then they stop
leaf production.


Brilliant, many thanks; I'll get some. I *never* have any coriander in when
I want it so it'll be nice to have some growing. It freezes well too, if I
end up with loads of it.

hello to another ukrm refugee

On a Gardeners World special about allotments a couple of years ago
there was an Asian gardener who came from a long line of farmers /
gardeners in Pakistan.

He grew all sorts of amazing things. One of those was coriander. He
lightly "ground" or bruised the seeds between rocks / stones before
planting to break the outer coating. This facilitated germination. The
other thing was that he never watered his plants - he argued this forced
them to put down strong roots by searching for moisture.

Dear old Monty said he was going to try the seed "grounding" technique
as he had struggled to get coriander to grow effectively. I've not seen
any feedback as to whether Monty was any more successful.

As I know next to nothing about gardening and plants you may well wish
to pay more attention to the resident experts than me!
--
Paul C