What Hot Weather Does to Cilantro

by | May 13, 2020 | Cilantro, Summer | 4 comments

Last May when I was out watering my front garden, I noticed some big changes to my cilantro. What was a green luscious plant barely a foot tall six weeks before was now reaching two feet tall and sporting delicate clusters of white flowers. It was healthy and pretty and going to seed. But it was also no longer producing more flavorful leaves that I could use in my Tex-Mex tacos. So what did I do?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

plate of tacos with cilantro
Making tacos for dinner? Cilantro will add a fresh and spicy kick, especially when it’s just picked from your garden. Grow some this year and you’ll be hooked.

The flowering of my cilantro was simply nature taking its course. Daytime high temperatures had moved above 90 degrees in my region. When that happens, cilantro is triggered into sending up a flower stalk, producing seeds, and dying.

This is because cilantro is a cool climate herb and I am growing it in a hot climate. This herb will not survive the sustained high heat of a summer in the Southwest. So it does the only thing it can do – set seed for the next generation and die.

What was a young tender herb six weeks before is now a full, blooming cilantro plant preparing to set seed. This is what happens when a cool weather herb experiences hot weather.

When this happens to your cilantro, don’t despair. Your cilantro dying was not a result of bad gardening. Your membership in the Green Thumb Club is still intact.

When cilantro flowers and sets seeds, you’re observing a natural and normal process. Embrace the change. Once the seeds begin to brown, harvest the seed heads and place them in a paper bag.

After a few weeks they will finish drying out and can be saved for a second sowing this September once the late summer temperatures begin to drop below 90 degrees.

Here’s the bottom line – when your cilantro goes to seed in hot weather it’s okay. Don’t stress over what is a normal process in nature.

After these blooms are fertilized by bees , they will produce round, brown seeds I can harvest and sow this fall for a second helping of cilantro.

4 Comments

  1. David Stanford

    Also grind some seed for coriander while waiting for fall.

    Reply
  2. Barb

    Thank you! My cilantro is doing the exact same thing and I was wondering what to do next.

    Reply
    • Dale courright

      My cilantro at 90+ did not flower but literally shrank 75%. Still strong stalks, strong aroma but the leaves are tiny now. It’s gone Bonsai!

      Reply

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