:: collecting cilantro seeds

Hello sweet friends, hope this post finds you all well.

Just thought I would pop in & share how I started my morning today.

Well, first I started my morning doing my daily devotionals with my sweet hubby.

Then I headed outside to take care of the gardens before the heat kicked in. It has been one hot summer here in North Carolina, and I'm dreaming of Fall every day now.

Anyhoo I digress. While I was looking around my gardens I decided it was finally time to do something with my fading cilantro. It went straight to seed this year without even one clipping for my kitchen. I'm not sure why I'm having such a hard time with it this year, in years past I've had so much I couldn't possibly use it all. Now....n o t h i n g.....here it is shortly after planting....already flowering.

Here they are a few weeks later, turned to seed. To prepare for collecting the seeds I simply pulled the plants out of their pots root & all. 

Here they are before I started to remove their little seeds. Actually, these are quite large as far as seeds go. The seeds of Cilantro are also known as the spice Coriander and can be used as such, or like me you can collect them & use them for starting new plants.

Once I pulled up the plants, I simply held the dried bunch over an open paper bag & gently rolled the seeds between my fingers to release them from the stems. This is very easy to do, however, it is a little time consuming. This is a self seeding plant so at some point they would probably fall off more easily on their own & then you could probably just shake them off into a larger container. However, mine needed a little more help to drop from their stems.

{ c o r i a n d e r }

or

{ c i l a n t r o  s e e d s }

The seeds are so lovely on their own that I can't wait to place them in little jars to store & display them. I'm pretty sure I have some vintage spice jars that will be just perfect for seed collecting.

 So, this is what you do when your cilantro plants bolt straight to seed in the hot weather. You wait patiently, enjoy their flowers & collect their seeds for next years crop. Or you can be like me & try to replant some right before the weather cools just to see if you can get a second crop in during the cooler months to come...they do prefer temperatures between 68 & 74 degrees after all. Wish me luck. 

 I was also able to collect a few seeds from a few of my basil plants that bloomed & seeded while I was on vacation. I'll try to share them with you next time...they are really tiny seeds. I'm becoming obsessed with seed collecting, it's so fun.

{ peace, love & hugs }

Carrie

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:: tiered lettuce & herb garden

I'm happy to finally be able to share this project with you, it's been on my list since last year when I created my :: back door herb garden . I am a girl of symmetry, so I knew then that I wanted to create another garden for the opposite side of my back door. So, this spring/summer was the time to get to it, having a graduation party gave me just the push I needed to finish this project up last week.

I purchased my galvanized tubs again from Amazon, the sizes are :: 16.75 gallon tub {bottom}, 4.25 gallon {middle}, and a 10 quart bucket for the top. I knew that I wanted to create a salad garden this time so a few weeks ago I purchased my lettuces at my local farmer's market, they are romaine & curly leaf lettuce. I planned to fill the whole garden with different lettuces, but my basil from last year wasn't doing so great so I decided to add some to this new garden....you can never have too much basil...yes. I also added a few other herbs for color & variety. In the top bucket I have a beautiful healthy lavender plant, it's going to be so pretty when it blooms, and in between the basils I added this lovely wispy silver Artemesia "Satiny" Wormwood I love the look of this herb.

 { Romaine lettuce, Sweet basil, Artemesia "Satiny" wormwood}

 {Sweet basil, Artemesia "Satiny" wormwood, Lavender}

I love how beautiful my lettuces look, it's going to be so hard the cut them for eating.

Below is my tiered herb garden from last season, in this one I have Lemon Balm, Sweet Basil, Cilantro,  Golden Thyme, Parsley, & Oregano. My basil that I overwintered are very slow growing this season, and want to go right into flowering so I'm constantly pinching them back. Hopefully as the season goes on they will perk up. My cilantro also wants to shoot right up to flower & I just purchased them this season so I'm going to have to do some research on how to best grow it. My lemon balm however is very vigorous & I've trimmed it back several times always bringing it in for use in flower arrangements, it smells so lovely. My Thyme & Oregano are doing well also.

{Cilantro, Lemon Balm}

{ Oregano, Cilantro, Parsley, Thyme}

I'm finding that I'm not minding too much that my Cilantro is going straight to flower since it is so lovely with it's delicate little white flowers...so pretty.

Here's how the two gardens look at my back door right outside of my kitchen. I love them, they bring so much life to this area of deck {which coincidentally needs some re-staining soon}

I also thought I would share with you my go to book on herbs, I'm constantly using this reference to learn more about what I'm planting & how to use it.

{found here}

Hope you have a wonderful weekend.

p l a n t    s o m e t h i n g

{peace, love & hugs}

Carrie

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