How do you stop coriander from bolting?

I've tried everything - full sun, shade. Lots of water, little water. Heat, cooler. But I just can't get it to bush up - a couple of weeks of growth and then... ZOOM!

The seed is great, but I'd like some leaf occassionally for my curries!

 

That happened to me once. The trick is to keep harvesting the top leaves regularly, even if you don't need them there and then.

 

Well, Coriander is an annual, so it wants to produce flowers and seed I'm afraid! But you can use the seeds in curry I think (can't you?)

 

You can Kristen yes, but it's the flavour of the leaves Andrew's after, very different to ground coriander or whole seeds. The seeds are great in Bombay Potato though.
I've had the same problem Andrew, about a week or two of nice leaves, then bang, the stuff has gone all feathery and is hitting the ceiling. Bin time for that plant I'm afraid. If you have room you can just keep replanting in stages then you've always got leaves.

 

Such a versatile herb and I love it, goes well with salad leaves, mixed in with rice or pasta in fact...just about anything. I'll even put it in a cheese sandwich.

Harvest it with scissors and have succesive plantings to always have fresh leaves, bolted for me first time I ever planted, but never bolted since the scissor method has been employed.

Steve...

 

But homegrown coriander seed has so very much more zing than the tired old packet stuff. Keep it in a brown paper bag though, else it'll go mouldy.

 

I know what you mean Andrew. I just plant a new pot every couple of weeks.