Floppy windowsill coriander

ooookay, these can germinate in the light. Last batch were started in dark after reading that light should be excluded when germinating seeds... except for some seeds.

Results of last batch indicate that dark was not helpful with these seeds. Every day more experience! Yayy!

 

Short answer, yes.

If you think about how stuff works in nature, if its warm, it must be spring. If its very warm, it must be summer. In either case, there must be a lot of sunshine. That sunshine is not falling on the seedling, therefore it must be stuck in some undergrowth somewhere. If it can just make a dash skywards before it runs out its energy reserves, it may well get its head up above the undergrowth that must be covering it, and then it will find an intensity of sunlight that corresponds with the temperature its feeling.

As a total, unrelated aside, I saw on a telly program the other week that there's a plant that does the exact opposite. The cheese plant. When it's seeds germinates, the shoot initially moves away from the light, because being a rainforest plant, its learned that if its getting some light, it must be in a clearing, and being a climber that's not a good thing, so it bolts away from the light figuring that if it heads for the shade, it will find a tree to climb up. Clever stuff these plants. Well they have been around a lot long than us animal sorts

 

Oooh, Marley -- super link, just what I need.

Cluedacious, I am grateful for the time you invest in explaining things. The aside is not unrelated, IMO. Rules & their exceptions are just what I'm grappling with.

Temperature for seedlings can be controlled approximately by placement, but the amount of genuine sunlight is harder to manage, no? Grow lights seem to start @ around £35 and are the tip of a kit iceberg beyond my scope. It's difficult for me to accept that this can't be done simply.

Cheese plant: Monstera deliciosa? Those grew to great size where I came from (Florida); easily a cubic metre, more often 2.

 

I like gardening much better here in the UK where there is actual soil, more than 2 seasons, and very gentle rain. People often think the constant warmth makes gardening easier in FL but cultivars have been developed specifically for its rigours... and if you could see what comes crawling out to eat growing tomatoes...

 

My grow cabinet cost me about £40 to build, and took a couple of evenings after work. I'll see if I can find the project thread.

You can get 1ft square LED panels, with LEDs set to the optimum colour for photosynthesis, and I used a just over 1ft square heat mat meant for a reptile tank because anything with 'horticultural' in its name is more expensive than it should be. The cabinet itself is an old cupboard that my mate wanted rid of. Power consumption is is about 40 watts with both heat and light on, and there is no waste heat at all (as there is with more powerful, conventional lights) so no safety issues.

All this means I can start seeds off a few weeks earlier than I otherwise could, as its not just about warmth, but daylight hours and intensity, and early in the year there just isn't enough daylight.

All this is just for info though in case you kind of want to do it but are put off by fears of complexity or expense. As Marley says, from mid to late spring, window sills are usually fine.

Yes, they are crazy plants. I wanted one for ages but they seemed to fall out of favour and disappear from the shops for quite a few years, but they seem to be back in now

The one sat in a bucket next to me is currently about a metre tall and nearly the same wide. At its base where it emerges from the compost it has a girth of about 10cm. Not bad going considering it was a tiny little thing in a 9cm pot when I bought it just a few weeks ago.

<anecdote alert>
Years ago, I was walking my dog on the beach. I found her stick which I threw for her, and she'd chase it and bring it back, and I'd throw it again. We had a couple of games of tug of war with it etc. All the stuff you normally do when walking the dog.

After this poor stick, which had been in the sea for who knows how long, and then sat on the beach drying in the sun for again no idea how long, had been chewed about for maybe an hour, I noticed it wasn't a typical stick. It had the remnants of a few roots on it. So I took it home and stuck it in a pot. My dad laughed at this, thinking I'd gone mad, but an experiment is an experiment, so I did it.

To everyone's surprise, including mine, after a few weeks, it started to develop new growth. So I continued to nurture it.

It turned out to be a cheese plant, and over the following months it out grew one pot after another another until it was in the biggest pot my dad would have in the living room. Probably around 5 gallons, and the plant just went from strength to strength. After some time, it was reaching up to ceiling, and we had to give it the occasional hair cut to keep it at a sensible size for the room it was in.

In the wild, in their native home in the rainforest, they are a climber, and will happily scale a 200ft tree in search of sunlight.

 

If all else fails, pop into Leicester and pay 29p at the International supermarket for a generous bunch!

 

I agree, so I'm planning to sow them direct into the allotment which should provide both. I think they are naturally a soft-textured, fragile plant and they are a tap-rooted umbellifer which inclines me to think they might not enjoy transplantation much, either.

 

£6.29, including bus fare...

 

My pot grown coriander usually gets straggly and floppy (except for this year, strangely enough) whereas the direct sown stuff is usually sturdier. However, check out this guy at around 9 minutes on the GW horticultural special:

 

Fab allotment. I can't see the rationale of grinding the stuff before sowing, although it probably helps with thinning as 50% gets destroyed. What do I l know, though, it's worth a try.

 

Thank you Lorea -- great stuff. Interesting too that he doesn't water it at all. This is the kind of simplicity I was hoping for. B'ham weather isn't too different from mine. Since I seem to be conducting a coriander study, I'll give his way a go as well... hard to argue with the look of his plants.

 

This is exactly my theory as to why Britain has been invaded/colonised so many times since prehistoric times

I occasionally get into those random discussions about why people might have came from the lovely weather of parts of Europe and beyond, to occupy cold, wet, grey Britain. To which I counter that yes its true its not the warmest place, but its not the coldest either. Its just right. Warm enough for plenty to grow, but not so warm as to be prone to drought, or harbour nasty insects and snakes and spiders. Yes we get a fair amount of rain, but (last couple of years excluded) usually just enough to ensure things grow, and rarely so heavy as to cause damage. We get winter, which usually brings the best into check, but being surrounded by that massive storage heater that is the sea, it rarely gets bitterly cold, and we get summer, but not enough to bake us.

Basically, stuff grows fairly reliably here, and a good diverse range of stuff too. If you're in a Germanic tribe and the sea has just flooded your land, where can you go? Britain. Just a short hop in a rowing boat to a nice little island of perfect climate. If you're in Italy and its too hot and the mozzies are bugging you while you're trying to enjoy your tomatoes and bread with a nice glass of red, hop over to Britain. Hardly any mozzies.

But best of all. Our climate allows us to grow the best apples. And that is vital why? Because apples are simply the best things. You can squeeze the liquid sunshine out of them and drink it, or you can stew them into pies and crumbles, or you can mince it up and serve it with the hog.