Introducing a new herb on my window - Cilantro

As my Basil continues to grow happy and wild, I am introducing a new herb Istarted growing around the same time. Its called Cilantro if you are fromthe west and Coriander if you are from the east.If you come from any Asian, Middle Eastern or Latin American country, youknow what I am talking about. Cilantro it looks a bit like Parsley buttastes much sweeter and is used extensively in cooking in India, LatinAmerica, China and Thailand. I haven¹t seen it used much in Korean orJapanese food so far. Better known in Southwest Asia as ³coriander², itderives its name from Latin term ³coriandrum². It tastes great in soups,salsa, guacamole and is sprinkled on top of most curries in India for itsflavor and sweet smell.While the delicate and ornamental plant is completely edible, the freshleaves and dried seeds are most commonly used in cooking.

My experience with growing Cilantro indoors:
Just like I started growing Basil, I used some dried coriander seeds (easilyavailable in bulk in a any grocery store, as it is extensively used incooking) and sowed them in my Jiffy Pellets. Unlike the Basil, my cilantroseeds did not show a lot of promise right away. Till date they have grown alittle, but not as fast as Basil. It could be wrong time in the year for it.But I think its more to do with the fact that I sowed around four to fiveseeds in 1 inch diameter, this could have too little space that hasconstrained the growth.To experiment when I transplanted my plant (in the Jiffy Pellet) to a pot, I sowed some seeds independently in the soil, just to compare. The seeds I sowed separately have shown tremendous growth right away, because they werewell spaced. The seeds sown separately germinated faster (keep the soilmoist at all times) with little care and today I have seen signs of theactual cilantro leaves getting produced. It¹s a very happy moment ascilantro leaves are very beautiful in shape and delicate in form.

Tips on growing cilantro seeds indoors:
Use a 5² diameter pot, add well drain soil and sow dried cilantro seeds 1.5cms below surface. Add lots of water and make sure it drains out. Cover thepot with a shrink wrap and leave it in a dark cool corner of your kitchencounter top. Keep a watch and add water every other day to ensure the soilis moist. Soon you will see the little pointed green leaves appearing. Oncethese surface, remove the wrap and move the pot to a sunny window. Watereveryday.

Growing a fuller basil plant

Many times when you use the pellet, you realize that most of your seeds germinated and grew as a bunch from the center of the pellet. In this case, the leaves that are taller have a splendid growth at the cost of the smaller, shorter shoots that dont get the same amount of exposure to sunlight. To solve this problem, I used a pretty rudimentary tool to pull back the tall leaves so shorter leaves could move out of the shadow. I used french hair pins, the ones that you use to pull back extra hair in your bun. You can buy a 100 pack of these on Amazon for a mere $1.16. I could pull back the taller leaves by using very small and thin hair pins to delicately position the leaves. A very simple process, just be very gentle and soft to not damage the stems of your plant.

This process will ensure that you have a fuller, healthy plant where every shoot gets complete exposure to sun. Here is a picture of my fuller basil which has been harvested several times already:

Urban Garden

For all who live in compact apartments know that growing plants takes up too much space in terms of where do you put the 2 quarts of soil, fertilizers, pots etc. I found some great ways to get started in a compact way.

Compact Greenhouse:

Jiffy International a Norwegian company makes a great product to start your compact greenhouse. I used the little Jiffy pellets to start my seeds. Get the Jiffy-7 5710 Mini Greenhouse 12 Peat Pellet for a mere $3.08. Just add water to the pellets that expand, dig a tiny hole and add one to three seeds, cover them back up with some peat. Set these in the greenhouse and store it in a dark warm place. I put the greenhouse in the oven and it worked great. Once the "true leaves" appear transplant the whole pellet into a pot. Its that easy!

Wonder Soil:

For soil I got the Wonder Soil. Wonder soil is an expanding potting mix that comes in 1/2 inch wafers. Just a cup of hot water, and one soil wafer expands to 14 times its original volume. Great for transplanting your jiffy pellets, one wafer fills a 4-inch pot. Or add water to all 18 in the 1-pound tube and you'll have the equivalent of a 10-pound bag of regular potting soil. This lightweight, soil-less medium is made of coconut coir, peat moss and water-absorbing polymers.

Whats more, this is a true international product, it is distributed from Mexico and actually made in Sri Lanka.

Watch the video on how it grows, its a true wonder:


My first leaves of Basil after two weeks of starting my seeds in the pellets:

The first leaves on all plants look the same. Little eyes looking out at you from the soil. I have already transplanted the pellet into the pot using the wondersoil potting mix. The "true leaves" are the little leaves you see in the midst of the first set of leaves. The true leaves look like basil leaves vs. the first leaves.


After one more week, this is how my basil looks:

So all I have to say is that my experiment has worked. I have a healthy basil plant in the midst of November and I am hoping that this plant continues to grow for the rest of the year. Will keep you updated on the progress.

Good Night and Good Luck!

Growing plants in your NYC apartment

I love plants and I live in an apartment in New York. So when I moved to the city in June of 2007 I knew that I had to figure out a way to make plants live in my NYC apartment environment. New York is a Zone 6 and the first frost date is 4/13 and last frost date is 10/27. I knew I was late but I had to bring in some plants. I love growing herbs as it has a real utility besides looking pretty and smelling great. Having bought herb plants before and not succeeding at keeping them alive indoors, I knew that growing from seeds was a better option. I bought the following seeds:

1) Basil
2) Coriander
3) Mint
4) Calendula
5) Lavender

I planted them in October around the frost date and I was expecting very little success. But surprisingly Basil grew fast and has had a healthy growth since. Calendula seems to not be getting enough humidity indoors, so while it germinated fast, its leaves have had a very short life. The others are not doing that well, but there is some progress in terms of germination, the growth has not been as sporadic as Basil. So New Yorkers, get some Basil seeds and some jiffy pellets and get to enjoy fresh basil year around.

* Click here to check your frost date: http://www.victoryseeds.com/frost/ny.html