Click here for Megan Cain’s YouTube Channel –  Tips for Growing Cilantro All Season Long

I think it’s something that’s on a lot of people’s minds this year because it’s summer

One thing that’s good to know is cilantro doesn’t really like the summer!

It doesn’t like the heat! Even I live in the Northern climate but it still get’s hot in the summer. Plus the increasing daylight although it was just the solstice but now we actually have getting decreasing daylight. 

But the increasing sunlight cause things to bolt and go to flower

After you get one or two harvests you’ll see it’s trying to push up a flower which means it’s bolting

It’s gonna try to set seed

often because it’s stressed which is often because of the heat

A common questions when I’m out and about and at classes

 

People ask me “How do I grow Cilantro?”

It likes conditions it likes are cool

not in the summer

better luck in spring and summer or fall

some people might be listening in winter

Try to plant it as early as possible

plant cilantro

a month before my average last frost

mid may OR plant in mid April

If conditions are ok you want to plant about a month before last frost it’s gonna be a lot happpier

If you have a cold frame or low tunnel, you can plant it even a month before that mid March. I have been experimenting with that!

But even if you plant it early, its gonna go to seed, it’s gonna bolt

So one tip is just keep PLANTING!

You don’t plant it once and think you are going to have it for the rest of the season. So keep planting. It’s one of the vegetables best for succession planting

I wrote myself last year, remind myself to plant cilantro every two weeks!

Just keep planting a row

• every week
• every two weeks

You’ll notice as it get’s close to summer it bolts pretty quickly

I harvest it

and try to cut it short, to prevent it from bolting. Some of the leaves grow back

This is my cilantro this year had already bolted back at the end of June.

What do you do after it bolts? Do you pull it out, let it go to seed?

After it bolts

I love the flowers! I think they’re really pretty

Beneficial insects like it.

I found ladybugs and other insects on there

• let it flower
• go to seed
• gets top heavy

We had rain over vacation, and it flopped over and covering them, so I yanked it out

in general I tell people that once a plant isn’t producing

get it out so you can get another crop in there

keep in mind for insects too

carrots or beets

wait a little space empty

planting fall garden

another tip is

if you can keep it cooler in the summer you might have better luck! 

plant in garden that is shade

I went to visit these friends and they put it in a place that is shady which is not that great for veggies or salad greens in August I don’t have a lot of salad greens or cilantro

They had a full lush bed, because they had it in such a shady bed

So if you have a shady part in your garden, great place to plant that don’t like the hot weather

Shade Cloth

An experiment I am doing this year is I bought some shade cloth

• lightly woven
• black mesh

If you look online you can see there are different thicknesses that blocks out a certain amount of light I got one that blocks about 30% of the light because I need some light to grow vegetables

But in the late afternoon shade

• cilantro
• salad mix in there
• can I keep salad mix growing
• throughout the summer with some shade cloth

Often I take a break in the summer from eating lettuce because it also bolts

Three awesome tips for keeping cilantro grow through your summer. One thing I think about when it does bolt, a lot of other things are coming on and it gives you some time to eat them and maybe keep up a little. Zucchinis are probably starting to grow etc. 

The other thing sometimes I go to farmer’s market to get it from someone else is doing better then me

I like to see what everybody’s growing and what other else is doing better then me

The biggest and my favorite tips

fall garden

growing it in fall is a completely different experience

I am a big proponent especially for people in cold climates

It’s such an amazing season!

A lot of people don’t because they run out of energy

less

Because it’s cooler

• days are shorter
• mosquitos disappear
• a lot of garden pests disappear
• not a lot of weed growth anymore

Cilantro will last for a long time! It’s frost hardy and it can go through the first frost and be fine

many more weeks in the fall

then I could in the spring in the summer

Depending on where you live, I plant it, my first frost is usually the first week in oct

much later, planting in August, several different successions, then Sept it gets cooler  and into Oct

• row cover
• hoop house
• cold frame

I harvest it on Thanksgiving and into December!

I’m so glad you said that because one of the things I have finally come to terms with is planting my fall garden in July, into August. I always thing plant a fall garden, you would plant it in Sept, but it’s almost time to plant it now.

But do you have any tips for planting succession wise because I inevitably take the packet down there and plant them all at once I think I should separate them out on the kitchen table before I even go down to the garden. Do you have any tips for that?

I have a planting calendar that keeps you on track

I’m pretty good at getting things out of the garden

I cram every space with something, you always want to give things room to grow but I am always trying to fit things in

if I harvest something, say I pulled out a lot of spring spinach in the last month I ripped it all out and I immediately plant something else usually the same day. 

succession planting

making sure you have enough seeds

• carrots
• spinach
• beets

I think a lot of it is planning and don’t really have that many seeds I get the next big one/small one doesn’t always have that many seeds in it. 

For squash maybe it doesn’t matter

But carrots I know I’m gonna plant a lot of rows so I make sure that I get a lot of seed

• always have seed
• ready to plant
• space that opens up
• get yourself out there
• filling spaces whenever you have space

I am starting to think about fall garden

too late

northern climate

plant life really slows down

things are growing slower

These long days in the north

can almost sit there and watching plants grow

in fall things are slowing down

I live in 5A

I plant majority of my fall garden in August

If you want to plant carrots you have to plant in July

beets

take a little longer throughout August I’m planting a lot of greens and turnips

up until the beginning of Sept it’s too late things aren’t gonna grow

It’s so awesome to have a fall garden!

I have lots of posts on my website and I also developed an online class

That walks people through

• when you should plant things based on your zone
• what varieties I recommend for fall weather
• how to use row cover
• how to build a low tunnel
• how to use a cold frame

Summer garden season can be frustrating! I think, there’s a lot of pests! It can be hot!

A lot of people don’t necessarily like the hot! I htink it can be more fun to garden in the fall! 

That’s my plug to start a fall garden!

Broccolis are another one that struggle in the heat. You’ve inspired me and taught me a lot. You’re so right, there’s that August slump! And it’s hot and you planted all this with lots of ambition and it’s dry and how am I gonna do all this. 

It’s been cold and damp here. I was surprised after just getting back from NY, a lot of things I thought would be bigger, the corn is by my ankles. The cold has been really chilly this spring. I feel like I should go plant some cilantro right now. 

I continue to plant

I love cilantro so much I use a lot of it! 

I throw it in my pesto!

I have a couple of sauces I bake

I could never have too much cilantro and I just keep planting it!

Do you want to tell them about your youtube videos you have figured out how to put two videos together and how to get the text type! You’re really good at explaining things too!

I have a lot of videos, I have a membership site, a garden club where people pay either yearly or monthly.

We do a community learning challenge every month or so. People vote on what they want to learn and I figure out how to teach it, I make some videos 

6 minutes or less is what I try to do. I had so many videos I should put some on Youtube and share them with everybody. Some people like to learn by reading a blog post but some people like to watch the action. 

The videos happen in my garden doing it

One of my most popular is how to prune your tomato

all the parts

• show people how to prune
• fun way to teach
• see things in action

get a peak inside my garden

It’s fairly new every week I usually add a new video

weekly email

applicable blog post on that subject

If you’re not on my list you can sign up at my website Creative Vegetable Gardener

I usually send out an every Sunday morning

I’ve done surveys in the past to see what do people want to learn about? Then I make a video about it. It was fun! I was editing a non gardening video we were up on lake superior last week, we recently bought a tiny travel trailer. IDK if anyone’s heard of a scamp? 

fiberglass

I posted some pictures on social media, and a bunch of people said we want to see inside! So I 

made a video

• story
• trailer
• fun video

send it out to my list on Monday

• fun ones periodically
• watch a fun video! 

THIS IS IT! IT’s summer! I think I want to remind people to really take time to appreciate! I like to take a lot of photos! 

don’t forget to put your to do list down and just get out there and have your morning cup of coffee, or drink at night or eat your dinner in your garden and sit and look around at all your hard work…

We’re at the height of summer! This is it!

For sure, I love to be in the garden and take pictures and one of these days I’m gonna get down there and paint!

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